The CEO of an up-and-coming craft brewery has admitted a “silly” social media blunder cost him more than two and a half years’ pay—or almost $600,000.
In a LinkedIn post on Friday, BrewDog boss James Watt admitted to “some costly mistakes” that sparked a string of events he described as “pretty grim.”
Multinational brewery and pub chain BrewDog—which is headquartered in Scotland but also has several bars in the U.S. and plans to expand into India, Ireland and Italy—scaled rapidly thanks to crowdfunding.
Britain’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled in 2021 that a BrewDog promotion offering customers the chance to win “solid gold” beer cans that had been hidden in regular cases was misleading. As well as being told they could keep the cans, winners had been promised 15,000 ($18,210) worth of BrewDog shares.
Some winners complained to the regulator, however, after discovering that the cans were actually gold-plated.
Referring to the promotion as “a 500,000 mistake,” Watt detailed in his post last week how the failed promotion had been “my mistake and mine alone.”
“Inspired by everything Willie Wonka I decided that we should hide 50 gold cans in cases of beer,” he explained. “We found an amazing goldsmith to make the cans for us and when they arrived at the brewery, we were blown away by how beautiful they were.”
In his enthusiasm for the promotion, Watt said, he misunderstood how they had been made and sent a series of tweets that told his followers there was a...
Judge found FBI affidavit flawed but not enough to return ballots Probe part of Trump administration effort to reexamine 2020 loss Fulton County argued FBI relied on discredited evidence WASHING...