BrewDog generates a lot of noise proportional for its size. Given its penchant for ‘crap beer amnesties’ and bottles made from stuffed squirrels, you sometimes wonder whether the main business of the Scots tyro is craft beer, as it claims, or publicity.
However, Diageo yesterday found the dog’s bite can sometimes match its considerable bark.
A characteristically ‘uncompromising’ blog effort from BrewDog founder James Watt accused the Guinness brewer of using its influence as sponsor of the BII’s annual awards to put the kybosh on BrewDog bagging its Bar Operator of the Year gong. BrewDog’s name was apparently already engraved on the trophy, prompting the new ‘winner’ to decline the now-tarnished honour.
Presumably the idea was to rob BrewDog - a fearsome critic of pretty much all the major drinks companies - of the oxygen of publicity. It didn’t work too well. As these things are wont to do, the fuss generated a momentum of its own on Twitter, with users lampooning the drinks giant’s actions under the hashtag #AndTheWinnerIsNot.
Yesterday afternoon Diageo was finally forced to issue a humiliating apology.
“There was a serious misjudgement by Diageo staff at the awards dinner on Sunday evening in relation to the Bar Operator of the Year Award,” the company said. “We would like to apologise to BrewDog and to the British Institute of Innkeeping for this error of judgement.”
If Double the Difference was 2011’s PR own-goal of the year, it’s hard to imagine anyone topping Diageo this year. Its name, you might say, is already engraved on the trophy.
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