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BrewDog: yet another hip company using 'rebel' language to sell its stuff

Thankfully there's people more interested in challenging Brewdog's misogyny and toxic workplace practices than exchanging petty arguments online.



And here's a union reaction to the documentary:

The most concerning allegations were those of a toxic workplace in which bullying and sexual harassment are the norm. Unfortunately, these issues are not unique to Brewdog. The craft beer industry presents itself as a fun, forward thinking place to work, however, issues of bullying and harassment are systemic in the industry.

In our own experience working in breweries we know workers are routinely forced to work in unsafe conditions, face intimidation and threats from management for speaking out. They often work long, unsociable hours on low pay, experience poor mental health as a result and the needs of those on the floor are always secondary to management’s desires for profit.
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iww.org.uk

BWU reaction to the BBC Brewdog documentary - Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

BWU reaction to the BBC Brewdog documentary The documentary entitled ‘The Truth about BrewDog’, which aired on BBC Scotland on Monday 24th January, paints a picture of a company with two faces. This follows a score of articles about sexual…
iww.org.uk iww.org.uk
 
I do think all this exposure has been pretty damaging, not for their bottom line right now specifically but because it changes what sort of response you get as a fanboy when you try bigging them up. The tone changes from advocacy to defence, and generally people are much less likely to start a conversation with "oh I love Brewdog, here's my arm tattoo" if they're having to then follow it up with apologism to a hostile audience. That's a serious setback to their techbro style company-cult business model.

Watts definitely has the power to stay in post given his position, but like with all those many wunderkind wannabe playboy rockstar scumbags before him the longer he does so the more he personally poisons the brand. And I don't think he can get out of that, because fundamentally he can't sue the BBC for reporting facts that have showcased him as a sleazy bully. I wouldn't be surprised to see him try to brazen it out followed by a public stepping back (which likely wouldn't actually be any such thing, but at least everyone might be spared his smug self-aggrandising marketing).

The best thing about all this mind is it's absolutely fucked their hopes of a strong IPO in 2022.
 
Rob Ray said:
I do think all this exposure has been pretty damaging, not for their bottom line right now specifically but because it changes what sort of response you get as a fanboy when you try bigging them up.
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Have you actually ever spoken to or met any "fanboys" - to know what the response was and is?

Do they really exist in any number in the UK?
 
teuchter said:
Have you actually ever spoken to or met any "fanboys" - to know what the response was and is?

Do they really exist in any number in the UK?
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Judging by the popularity of their bars I'd say they don't exist. Say what you like about Brewdog bars but you can always get a seat, in fact you usually get your choice of seat.
 
I'm logically extending the result of it becoming known that the CEO of Brewdog is a scumbag presiding over a toxic workplace culture and its likely impact (hence the use of the word likely). And yes, quite obviously they do have UK fanboys.

JFC how have you been talking admiringly about their marketing model for 160 pages and not bothered to pay any attention to their blatant rip-off of Silicon Valley hype-and-cult methodology? Half the point of their Equity Punk project is to get people, quite literally, personally invested in the concept of their success. Their version of "move fast and break things" and physical demonstration of such in their advertising is so on the nose it's comical.

This is "new company 101' stuff for tech industries, I used to get explainer emails from Crowdfunder when we were doing the fundraiser for A Normal Life on the need to convert early adopters into advocates, maintain hype and how to present your USP as somehow kicking against The Establishment. The thing Watts can legitimately take credit for is he realised brewing was ripe for that culty Spirited New Wave vs The Establishment bollocks.
 
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Of course they have fanboys. A lot of places do: Spoons have "tickers" hoping to drink in them all, Nandos has.... Whatever the Hell Nandos has. BD took the concept and made profit from it: turn your obsession into shares, make profit, be "punk".
 
Rob Ray said:
I'm logically extending the result of it becoming known that the CEO of Brewdog is a scumbag presiding over a toxic workplace culture and its likely impact (hence the use of the word likely). And yes, quite obviously they do have UK fanboys.

JFC how have you been talking admiringly about their marketing model for 160 pages and not bothered to pay any attention to their blatant rip-off of Silicon Valley hype-and-cult methodology? Half the point of their Equity Punk project is to get people, quite literally, personally invested in the concept of their success. Their version of "move fast and break things" and physical demonstration of such in their advertising is so on the nose it's comical.

This is "new company 101' stuff for tech industries, I used to get explainer emails from Crowdfunder when we were doing the fundraiser for A Normal Life on the need to convert early adopters into advocates, maintain hype and how to present your USP as somehow kicking against The Establishment. The thing Watts can legitimately take credit for is he realised brewing was ripe for that culty Spirited New Wave vs The Establishment bollocks.
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Yeah, I get how it works. Certainly at the beginning, getting people "invested" not just financially was a big part of their strategy and no doubt having those people "advocating" for them was significant.

But that was, what, 15 years ago now? They are now a big multinational operator, with their own brand bars in town centres and a big marketing budget. I don't think they need those advocates now; they operate much more like any old beer company. They get attention through their various stunts, which they can throw money at, and they are visible everywhere.

So, I don't think they really rely on what you call "fanboys". I don't think, in 2022, someone hearing from a Brewdog "equity punk" about this cool new beer company is how they come to buying their stuff. They walk into Tescos and it's there. Or there's a Brewdog bar in their city centre.

That's why I wondered if you had actually talked to any of these "fanboys" or were just making it up, or "logically extending" as you put it.

All this stuff might be harmful for them, but it seems more likely that it'll be someone looking at a 12 pack of Brewdog cans in Sainsburys, recalling vaguely or specifically that this company was subject to some kind of BBC expose, and then making a choice accordingly. If there is an alternative next to the Brewdog ones that is similarly appealing maybe they'll go for that. If the alternative is a range of dull Euro-lagers they might well decide they are going to stick with the Brewdog option.
 
Rob Ray said:
I'm logically extending the result of it becoming known that the CEO of Brewdog is a scumbag presiding over a toxic workplace culture and its likely impact (hence the use of the word likely). And yes, quite obviously they do have UK fanboys.

JFC how have you been talking admiringly about their marketing model for 160 pages and not bothered to pay any attention to their blatant rip-off of Silicon Valley hype-and-cult methodology? Half the point of their Equity Punk project is to get people, quite literally, personally invested in the concept of their success. Their version of "move fast and break things" and physical demonstration of such in their advertising is so on the nose it's comical.

This is "new company 101' stuff for tech industries, I used to get explainer emails from Crowdfunder when we were doing the fundraiser for A Normal Life on the need to convert early adopters into advocates, maintain hype and how to present your USP as somehow kicking against The Establishment. The thing Watts can legitimately take credit for is he realised brewing was ripe for that culty Spirited New Wave vs The Establishment bollocks.
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Very much this. See also Bitcoin Advocates*, but to be fair no-one is as out there as them.

Musk and Telsa are the go to example. Tesla Full Self Drive is and amazing bit of software, but it nowhere near ready to be released on the road, even on the latest revision. It will work well for a few minutes, then swerve about, randomly stop or drives in a bus lane. On the video I saw driving in the bus lane is the improvement, on the previous version it tried to drive up a dedicated tramway.

*Again though it's sexist language; Bitcoin Bros and Fanboys, it easy to miss, especially being and man, but must have a large sub-conscious effect on people.
 
teuchter said:
So, I don't think they really rely on what you call "fanboys". I don't think, in 2022, someone hearing from a Brewdog "equity punk" about this cool new beer company is how they come to buying their stuff. They walk into Tescos and it's there. Or there's a Brewdog bar in their city centre.
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They absolutely do still rely on them particularly for expansion outside the UK (this was quite a large part of the BBC documentary) and one of their biggest selling points for the IPO is the stickiness of their brand — how loyal is your customer base, potential for growth etc. They are certainly attempting to transition beyond those roots into non-"independent" territory (part of what makes them shitheels is this was evidently always the plan, and they were always intending to betray everything they supposedly said and stood for). But ubiquity has to be justified by popularity, and without advocates claiming they're especially different and good, they're still just relative small fry up against much bigger and more powerful breweries. Which as I say, kind of fucks them when it comes to the position they're aiming for.

And good thing too, frankly, as going back to the actual point of the thread, these kinds of projects are on the most toxic end of modern business culture and the more kickings they get the better.
 
Rob Ray said:
They absolutely do still rely on them particularly for expansion outside the UK (this was quite a large part of the BBC documentary) and one of their biggest selling points for the IPO is the stickiness of their brand — how loyal is your customer base, potential for growth etc. They are certainly attempting to transition beyond those roots into non-"independent" territory (part of what makes them shitheels is this was evidently always the plan, and they were always intending to betray everything they supposedly said and stood for). But ubiquity has to be justified by popularity, and without advocates claiming they're especially different and good, they're just small fry up against much bigger and more powerful breweries. Which as I say, kind of fucks them when it comes to the position they're aiming for.
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Fair enough, I have no idea what they are doing outside of the UK. Nonetheless your statement about the kind of response a "fanboy" will get when talking them up does seem just to be speculation.
 
It's not about "will" get, it's about going from there being little to no risk of a hostile response beyond I dunno "they're nothing special" to a fair likelihood (particularly among people who are interested in beer) of "wait isn't that the company run by the abusive creep which ripped off loads of its investors and staff?" And then having to explain yourself.
 
Rob Ray said:
It's not about "will" get, it's about going from there being little to no risk of a hostile response beyond I dunno "they're nothing special" to a fair likelihood (particularly among people who are interested in beer) of "wait isn't that the company run by the abusive creep which ripped off loads of its investors and staff?" And then having to explain yourself.
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Sure. That's your speculation, presumably based on a BBC documentary having greater reach than all the other controversies the company has been involved in since the outset.

Your initial comment suggested you had actually been observing these reactions in real life; that's what I was interested in. Because I don't actually have much idea of how many people out in the real world are that bothered or aware. And certainly not outside of the UK.
 
It's not speculation that the weight of public interventions and evidence (not just the BBC, public scandals are cumulative not isolated incidents) means a much larger number of people than was previously the case now know what the CEO and company is actually like, and most will remember it when conversations come up about the firm. Which means conversations about that firm will be much less likely, on balance, to be positive, thereby discouraging people from doing so. That's just a fact.

What you seem to be doing is mistaking my writing this as an understandable personal reaction, using the word "likely" specifically as a note that I'm not describing a universal reaction, as a suggestion it definitely will be a universal one which I had directly observed in sum, which I of course did not at any point say and would be a physical impossibility.

Edit: Fucking hell I really hate having to spell this shit out for you, knowing that your main reason for writing it is you're either being wantonly or actually stupid, and in either case will continue to argue as though you have an actual point rather than just being engaged in tendentious ego-soothing. It doesn't "forward a debate" it just buries better posts among the slurry.
 
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Rob Ray said:
It's not speculation that the weight of public interventions and evidence (not just the BBC, public scandals are cumulative not isolated incidents) means a much larger number of people than was previously the case now know what the CEO and company is actually like, and most will remember it when conversations come up about the firm. Which means conversations about that firm will be much less likely, on balance, to be positive, thereby discouraging people from doing so. That's just a fact.
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It's not a "fact" that controversy will necessarily result in an overall negative tone of conversation amongst the target market for the product. That's been BD's whole thing for years, as documented on this thread.

This (ie the BBC documentary) might be different to previous events, but we don't know that.
 
If you actually think the exposure of the cult-of-personality CEO as an abusive creep, his company as having repeatedly ripped off its own customer base, his staff as having been fucked over by a toxic culture so bad that hundreds of staff past and present were publicly denouncing them about it etc isn't going to have a negative impact on the conversations that are had by people talking about Brewdog then you're an idiot. If you don't think that and you're just on the windup you're also an idiot. Either way, you're an idiot and I'm done here.
 
steeplejack said:
If only I had so much time on my hands that I could spend hours and hours every day being a pointless contrarian on an internet messageboard.
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Thing is, I've seen this before. On the Iraq war, on Brexit, on HS2, there will always be a single thread in a single message board, in a tiny nook of the Internet where a clump of "Side X" take attack against a siege of "Side Z". The real world happens around them – around us – and yet they keep on typing.
 
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