I see BrewDog’s latest billboard ad — for its alcohol-free beer — has landed it in trouble with the Advertising Standards Authority. It wasn’t helped by being outside a primary school.
It reminds me of the Scottish brewer’s previous run-in with the ASA, who told the company to stop describing itself on its website as:
A post-Punk apocalyptic motherfu*ker of a craft brewery.
I do a lot of brand messaging work where I urge companies — sometimes against some resistance — to drop the jargon. Get off the fence. Say something interesting and different about themselves. And this applies to B2B firms, not just consumer brands.
BrewDog’s approach certainly isn’t right for everyone. And I don’t much like their ad, offensiveness or otherwise aside. But you couldn’t accuse the firm of being boring or following the herd.
Its provocative marketing — and the way it consistently behaves in other respects (it hit back at the ASA’s “killjoy, self-important pen pushers in Burton suits”) — is spot-on for a brand that has decided to take a stand as the anti-establishment underdog.
More companies could take a leaf out of their book — if not necessarily in quite the same way.
