Off The Shelf #28: Brew Doghouse
Taking on big (craft) beer. If I don't show up for work tomorrow...
Image Source: Pradnyal Gandhi on Unsplash
I don’t much like football, or any sport, for that matter. But when it comes to the World Cup, I’m a hypocrite and I follow along. I always have to tread the fine line between learning enough about what’s going on, but not overstepping in conversations and getting found out. Kind of like Moss in the IT Crowd:
This, along with a moderate liking for craft beer, qualifies me to write about Brewdog’s ridiculous ad campaign around the Qatar World Cup. This week, the company proudly appointed itself as ‘anti-sponsor’ of the tournament. I quote (emphasis mine):
This isn't a World Cup. It's a World F*Cup […] Let's be honest: Qatar won it through bribery […] in Qatar, homosexuality is illegal, flogging is an accepted form of punishment, and it's OK for 6,500 workers to die building your stadium. That's why we're kicking off. And we're putting our money where our mouth is, with all the profits from our Lost Lager sold during the tournament going to fight human rights abuse.
We're proud to be launching BrewDog as an anti-sponsor of the World F*Cup. To be clear we love football, we just don't love corruption, abuse and death. So join us. Let's raise a glass to the players. To the fans. To free speech. And two fingers to anyone who thinks a World Cup in Qatar makes sense.
The message here couldn’t be clearer, and they’re right. We don’t need to go through the reasons why it’s bizarre to hold the World Cup in Qatar. It’s good that this stuff is being called out. When I saw the advert, my initial reaction was that it’s a bold, brave stance to be making, and the company might lead others into making similar declarations.
Until I went on the website and saw this:
There’s no other way to put it: it’s hypocritical, tone-deaf and stupid to be spending on an eye-catching ad campaign to denounce and condemn the tournament, while in the same breath, actively marketing to bring punters in so you can sell them beer and food while watching the same tournament. People are also riled up on this because Brewdog itself is no stranger to controversy on social issues: staff previously alleged a culture of fear at the company, for which the founder - himself accused of inappropriate behaviour - was forced to apologise.
But, rather than just add to the indignant outcry on social media, I thought I’d at least try to see it from their side to give them a fair hearing.
You could argue the following:
Brewdog confronted its own controversies at the time and came out with a full, unreserved apology and a plan to improve. It’s probably not fair to equate the company’s human rights record with that of a country where homosexuality is illegal.
Brewdog is going to give lots of money to charity after it’s counted up its profits from the sale of Lost Lager over the period.
People are going to watch the games anyway, so why shouldn’t Brewdog give them what they want, while also running a campaign to raise awareness about the problems with the World Cup?
Here’s my view on these arguments:
I can just about get on board with the first point. Companies make mistakes, and they learn from them. It shouldn’t stop them doing the right thing in the future.
But I take exception to the second point. Firstly, the charities are as yet completely unspecified. It’s unacceptable that they can’t say where the money will go, and it suggests they haven’t bothered thinking about it yet. Secondly, it’s not actually going to be a lot of money, especially in the context of the the profits that will be made across the board throughout the tournament. I took a look through Brewdog’s last annual report to put some numbers against it. I show my workings below, but a very simple model (which wrongly assumes constant sales throughout the year and that Lost Lager will have maintained the same share of Brewdog’s sales in 2022) suggests that the amount given to charity could be in the region of about £52k. This estimate is probably on the low side, given that there should be a spike in sales during the World Cup, and Lost Lager has since probably become better established as one of Brewdog’s top products. Let’s say I’m way off the mark, and adjust the number upwards. Double it - no, triple it if you want. Let’s say it could be £150k, at most. Sound like a lot? That’s 0.12% of the company’s 2021 operating expense. It basically feels like a reasonable ad spend on a high-profile marketing campaign for a company worth almost £2 billion. So there’s nothing wrong with donating the profits to charity - let’s just not pretend that it’s a significant move.
Which brings me to the final point. A really significant move would have been to just turn the screens off for the matches, exactly because people will want to watch them. If we’re serious about calling out the sham World Cup, wouldn’t a total boycott be the most effective thing to do? But then football-lovers wouldn’t be able to watch the football, you might say. To which I would say: that is exactly the point.
I suppose people are at least talking about these issues, and in honesty, the Brewdog backlash has in some way helped this. I just think that the company missed a shot on goal here: this is merely a gimmick ad campaign that comes across as cynical. Brewdog could have been leaders and pushed other businesses into taking a stronger position. Instead, the campaign has left a taste more bitter than their Triple Hazy IPA.
Let me know what you think.
Data as of 13 November 2022. Just to keep my senior politician readership out of hot water on Sunday morning TV. Price of milk represented by the average price of comparable 2-pint bottles at 5 major retailers in the United Kingdom (Tesco, Aldi, Sainsbury’s Waitrose and Marks & Spencer). Index is equally weighted and based on online prices. Methodology is purely proprietary and utterly unscientific. For actual price data that might be remotely useful for economic analysis, try the Office for National Statistics.
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