Written by: Katie Scott, Business Reporter Brainz Magazine
The chief executive of beer brand BrewDog has given out almost £500k of his own money to disgruntled customers after a Willy Wonka style promotion backfired.
James Watt had hidden 50 gold cans in cases of beer but customers complained to the UK’s the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) when it was discovered that the cans were not pure gold. They were, in fact, made mostly of brass and only plated with the precious metal, reports The Guardian. The ASA upheld the complaints.
Watt wrote on LinkedIn: “The initial tweets I sent out told customers of the prospect of finding ‘solid gold cans’,” claiming each one was still worth £15,000. “It was a silly mistake. Things started to go wrong when the winners got their cans.” He continued: “Those three tweets were enough to do a lot of damage. It blew up into a media storm. The gold can saga was headline news. The campaign launch morphed into a frenzy, with attacks coming in from all quarters. It got pretty grim. I should have been more careful.”
He also admitted that the tweets were misleading and stated: “We were made to look dishonest and disingenuous and took a real hammering.”
Watt explains that he has since contacted all of the fifty winners and offered them the “full cash amount” if they were unhappy with what the original prize comprised - keeping the can and receiving £15,000 in BrewDog shares.
“All in all, it ended up costing me around £470,000 – well over two and a half years’ salary,” said Watt, who now owns 40 of the gold cans
