James Watt, CEO of Scottish beer brewery BrewDog, has paid £470,000 (531,000 euros) out of his own pocket to the disgruntled winners of a ‘solid gold beer can’ from an campaign. After people had bought the beer in question en masse, the cans turned out not to be made of solid gold.
BrewDog launched a high-profile campaign in 2020 in which it claimed there were fifty solid gold beer cans to be won. All you had to do was buy beer from this brand, because the golden cans were hidden in crates of beer. The campaign was a huge hit in the UK and people started hoarding beer en masse. Social media was buzzing with reports about how much beer people had bought in the hope of finding such a golden can, according to ‘The Guardian’.
“misguided”
However, the lucky winners were surprised to find out that the can was not made of solid gold, but only gold plated. The gold that was processed in it was still worth 10,000 pounds (11,300 euros), according to ‘The Guardian’, after a prize winner requested the true value from gold dealers. But not 15,000 pounds (16,900 euros) as BrewDog and Watt had claimed in their advertisements. For example, Watt posted a total of 50 posts online on his personal social media accounts, in 3 of which he claimed, among other things, that the cans were made of “solid” gold and that the value of a can was £15,000. According to the British code committee ASA, a single 330 ml can made of pure gold would be worth no less than 363,000 pounds (410,000 euros).
Some of the winners decided not to leave it at that. They went to the British archyde news Code Committee because they believed they had been misled. The commission launched an investigation and upheld the complaints.
Penitent dress
On his LinkedIn page, Watt puts on the penitent. He thinks the ruling of the British archyde news Code Committee is justified and apologizes for his misleading messages. In his own words, he had wrongly assumed that the beer cans were made of solid gold and speaks of “excessive enthusiasm”. He also cites the “huge media storm” that started after winners “justifiably complained about their prize”. According to him, the atmosphere even became “grim” and he thinks he should have been more careful.
Watt didn’t want the brewery to pay for his mistake. “Therefore, I personally contacted all 50 winners and informed them that if they are not satisfied with their prize, I will personally pay them the full amount as an alternative. I promised to pay for this with my own money so that the company would not suffer financially for my mistake.”
Watt has since been “40 gold beer cans richer and £470,000 (531,000 euros) poorer”, it sounds, “good for more than 2.5 years’ salary”. This would mean that he transferred 40 angry customers to £11,740, but it is not known how much he actually paid each winner separately.
James Watt
@BrewDogJames
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Rose beer
BrewDog is known for its high-profile marketing stunts. In the past, for example, the brewery launched a campaign that drew attention to the wage inequality between men and women. They then released “pink beer for girls”, which was sold at a lower price to anyone who could identify as a woman. Earlier, the brand also launched “transgender beer”.
According to marketing expert Rupert Parker Brady, the promotion with the golden beer cans has proved successful because many people have started buying cans of beer. In addition, you can also create a group of followers with anti- who find this really cool. According to Brady, that also means that you occasionally make mistakes because you are misunderstood.
“There are professional parties that can help with this, but if you ignore well-intentioned advice, you soon have a problem. My guess is that this is not the first activist way of from this company. This CEO comes up with something and then he immediately wants to implement it. You may also wonder to what extent he earns back that half a million. After all, the campaign attracted a lot of attention. In the long term, the solution he offers has a high degree of sympathy and will benefit the brewery.”
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