The start of the World Cup in Qatar is less than a week away, and one global brand has leveraged the image of that country to execute a marketing performance that the whole world will talk about.
BrewDog is a multinational brewery and pub chain from Scotland, unofficially the first craft beer producer in Europe and the first owner of a craft beer hotel in the world, with its products available in its own bars from Australia to the USA.
They have decided to promote themselves as a ‘proud anti-sponsor of the football event in Qatar with a series of billboards protesting against the terrible state of human rights in that country. Namely, 6,500 workers died during the construction of the stadiums, the state of gay rights in Qatar is also concerning, as is the fact that people are punished by flogging for a number of offenses such as adultery, defamation, or alcohol consumption.
‘First Russia, then Qatar, we can’t wait for North Korea’ is the loudest message from the posters in which the world-famous beer brand addresses the global public, loudly emphasizing in accompanying PR activities that they “donate all profits made from the sale of Lost Lager during the World Cup to fight against human rights violations.”
And this would be a truly great move if BrewDog did not sell its beers in Qatar. People have criticized them for hypocrisy and branded this marketing move as a cheap attempt to deceive the public into thinking they care about human rights, while they actually care about selling their beers, using Qatar merely for self-promotion.
Namely, BrewDog will, despite its ‘fight against Qatar’, sell its beers in that country, but also show all the matches from that championship which they do not support in about a hundred of their pubs around the world.
BrewDog will sell beers in Qatar during the World Cup through the distributor QDC (Qatar Distribution Company). QDC has permission from the authorities to sell beers to all individuals, hotels, clubs, and restaurants in Qatar, which means that BrewDog will indeed profit from the event in the country against which they have campaigned.
Set of incidents
After a tweet revealing this, the brewery issued a statement attempting to divert attention from themselves.
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– Apple also sells iPhones in Qatar, but that doesn’t mean they have accepted human rights violations in Qatar – BrewDog defends itself, not understanding the point of the negative public reaction which criticized them for also selling their beers in China, where human rights are also in question.
They tried to direct the hate towards other brands. – We are fighting to raise awareness against scandals and injustices in Qatar. If people want to attack brands, let them attack the official partners of FIFA – Adidas, Kia, and Visa – they announced.
Then they simply declared everything as hate.
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As one of the commentators on the internet said, ‘There is a fascinating trend where wealthy and deluded entrepreneurs lazily claim to be saving the world by spinning their imagined positive stories despite reactions telling them otherwise, and then dismiss every criticism as jealousy or typical hate on social media.’
– The more we show football in our bars, the more beer we sell, and thus the more money we raise – BrewDog attempted to justify itself in response to the negative public reactions, not understanding where the problem lies. If you are truly fighting against something, you do not participate in it. Nor do you support the same in another country, like China, where they have been operating since 2007.
However, even this opportunistic move by the brand might have passed if BrewDog had a clean conscience. Namely, this brewery has had a whole set of incidents in recent years.
First, in 2010, they angered animal rights activists with a campaign featuring bottles inside dead animals, they were fined for swearing in ads in 2014, in 2018 they were reprimanded for advertising to children and sexism, in 2020 they deceived customers by promoting a product as healthy, in 2021 they were accused of discrimination, and after that, the head of BrewDog was accused of sexual harassment.
After the BBC aired a documentary in March 2021 about four LGBTQ community members who were fired due to a ‘culture change at BrewDog’, in June a group of former employees called ‘Punks with Purpose’ published an open letter to the company accusing it of a toxic work environment and a rotten culture.
The biggest uproar was caused by the BBC documentary at the beginning of 2022 about sexual harassment. Co-founder and CEO of BrewDog, James Watt, was accused of inappropriate behavior towards female team members and guests, which everyone in the company allegedly knew about.
A few employees revealed to the BBC that new girls and guests were always warned about the boss. ‘James Watt is in town. Leave quietly after your shift ends, don’t stay, don’t do your hair and makeup that day. Don’t let him notice you,’ they told women to protect them from harassment.
Opportunistic performance
Because of such things, the public reacted even more strongly to BrewDog’s latest campaign regarding human rights in Qatar, branding this marketing move as a slimy opportunistic performance.
The marketing and communications industry is obsessed with socially responsible business and generally ‘purposes’, but most brands promoting such things do so not because they are genuinely more aware and responsible, but because it is a great gimmick that resonates with the audience.
Customers are increasingly realizing how much brands deceive them.
– You cannot call out one autocratic regime and support another just because they make and sell your beer. You call out Qatar, but you operate in China. If they wanted to send a real message, they would shut down operations in China – stated Mark Sabah from the Council for Freedom in Hong Kong. And he is right.
However, most people will celebrate BrewDog’s excellent marketing move, unaware of the bigger picture. This marketing move could indeed pay off for them.
