Carlton & United Breweries CEO steps down after misguided campaign
The public backlash against the latest Great Northern beer campaign has been so harsh that Carlton & United Breweries CEO, Danny Celoni, has stepped down.
Late last month, The Great Northern Brewing Company launched its ‘Outdoors for a Cause’ campaign, which aimed to raise funds to buy and protect parcels of land, which would be designated as national parks.
The campaign was a partnership with non-profit organisation Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, and rather than see this as a charitable acts, various groups claimed the company was surreptitiously planning to turn state parks into national parks.
Have to feel for the guy – who knew wanting to protect the bush was ‘woke’. Imagine if their consumers put the same effort into targeting Lendlease and co. for actually destroying what they profess to love so much.
Seriously? What a storm in a teacup. Great Northern has built it’s brand on the Beer for the Great Outdoors. This campaign simply looked to put some of the profits back into the Great Outdoors that they were leveraging to build their brand. Granted, a small misstep that many of the associated brand activities like camping and fishing can’t be carried out in National Parks – but the misinformation and over-reaction here that this would turn State Parks into National Parks that leads to a CEO resignation is just letting the anti-woke, keyboard warrior police win the day. I totally agree brands shouldn’t just do purpose driven work for the sake of ‘brand-standing’. But that doesn’t mean we have to lie down and let Trumpism’s anti-woke shut down all and every purpose driven campaign. Looking after the environment isn’t woke, it’s critical. I’m all for getting rid of brand-standing and CSR campaigns that have nothing to do with a brand or product. But I’m even more impassioned about not letting the bullies #boycott and cower brands into risk-aversion and vanilla campaigns that fear standing out.
P.S. I don’t work for Asahi or an agency that works with them. I don’t even like Great Northern Beer.
All the anti woke crowd were absolutely whipped to a frenzy by the typical fear mongering and and extremist positions put forward by most of the Murdoch style media. It was pathetic. And yet somehow anyone who has any concern for anything remotely sane is now a far left extremist fascist… truly bizarre
Would be interesting to weigh the value of losing these customers vs the potential gains of drinkers who maybe hold more enlightened views.
Also, that is a massively misleading headline Mumbrella. Come on.
Completely disjointed from their customer’s values. Advertising people don’t drink Great Northern