Moment 106 - Marketing Principles That Made Brewdog Billions: James Watt

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0:33Going to your marketing thesis, because this is really what's defined, um, brood dog in the eye of the consumer. In the eye of someone like me, that doesn't honestly drink beer, but knows about the brand and considers it to be a famous brand and watched it on LinkedIn and social media over the years, build it sort of a claim. What is your like, your principles that underline your marketing thesis? Because your marketing thesis is very, very different to pretty much nearly all brands in this country. There's maybe a 0 .1 % that maybe you've copied or that have been inspired or that, you know, chicken and egg, I didn't know who came first, but it's a very unique thesis towards marketing.

1:06What, what underpins it? We've got two very simple tests that we apply to everything that we do from American perspective. So the first test is, would or could another business do this thing? And if the answer is yes, we've got to seriously consider why we're doing it. The second test is, if I spend a pound on this, is it going to give me a 10 extra turn to spend a pound? Compared to how a competitor would spend that pound. So we are in an industry dominated by global behemoths of businesses who are hundreds of times our size and we are, we're closing that gap and we want to close that gap, but we only close that gap by making our market and our communications everything we do work so much more effectively than theirs.

1:45If our market and is only as effective as theirs, we don't close that gap and we lose. So the two tests are, could or would another company do this? And is it going to give me a 10 extra turn versus how my competitor would spend that money? And if I'm thinking about how to get a driver better at time on marketing, you know, and then I think about what you've done, I see what we've got to be probably bolder to win share of voice. We've got to try and win headlines in more extreme ways because nobody's going to be writing about you for the fun of it. If you're a smaller sort of challenge, challenge brand, then the second thing I think is kind of, we've got to do that on new platforms.

2:18We can't fight out on TV or newspapers because those are where you kind of throw huge amounts of money and you get a return. So new platforms and new approaches and that's very much kind of signifies what I've seen from Brudog, very, very bold. Very bold and intentionally bold and especially bold in our early years when we had no budget whatsoever. So the challenge was how can we get our name out there with no money at all? So we had to do things that were intentionally provocative that were on the edge and sometimes we can adjust that edge as well, but that enabled us to get our name or message or business out there with no budget at all.

2:53So we have driven a tank through the streets of London, we've thrown taxidermic cats out of a helicopter over the bank of England with put Vladimir Putin in the front of a beer label. So we've done a lot of things, low budget high impact, but we've tried to make it that everything we do ties back and is underpinned by what we're passionate about. So there has to be a connection there. So does this reinforce what we believe in what we're trying to do as a company? Because otherwise it's just hollow and it's fake and false. So how does this reinforce the core beliefs that drive this business, which is trying to build a return of business in a huge passion for a fantastic beer?

3:27One of the more extreme things, I sort of laden me in thing. What else am I seeing? I think I'm going to be proud to be seeing it all because I'm obviously a marketer. So running a marketing company and seeking inspiration from lots of different brands and seeing what they're doing and the impact that's having especially on social media, which is my battleground. The thing I read about more recently was that you put in a complaint about your own beer, which triggered press. We did. So this was all the way back in 2008 and we had a few dining battles with a few bigger players. One of them was the Port -Mountry.

3:58So the Port -Mountry was an industry still as an industry regulator. And for me it is a thinly veiled cartel funded by the big drinks businesses who have got invested in just in making sure that small businesses are not successful. And there was a few dwellings at the Pout that were just so, so silly and frivolous that we wanted to make a statement. So we complained about one of our own beers to make a met a statement about how silly the process is and how essentially corrupt it was as an organisation funded by the big beer companies, big drinks businesses who've got a vested interest in making sure the small ones are not successful.

4:33How does that work? So you make a beer that is really high in AVB. Is that the correct term? It was, yes. We made a beer called Tokyo 18%. Now if you looked at the newspaper headlines in the UK when we launched that beer, you would have thought that I was single -handedly responsible for the downfall of Western civilization by making a 18 % beer. We had in the sun binge drinking, blame this man with like a cut out of my head in a bottle of Tokyo that took a bit of an explanation to my very religious grandmother, but that's another story that everything we did with that beer was, we just made a thousand bottles.

5:04It was very expensive. It was for connoisseurs, it was for efficient ados. And we want to elevate the status of beer. And I think the more someone can understand and appreciate something, the less likely they are to abuse it. And we make expensive products for people who love, love fantastic beers. So it was to make a statement of, you've got all these big companies doing very cheap alcohol that's likely to be abused, trying to ban products of this company that's looking to elevate the status, introduced education awareness around beer, and lead people to sit and enjoy beer and that were elevated.

5:38And when you see yourself in the sun with a cardboard cut out of your face, is that kind of swings in roundabouts? Is that good from a marketing perspective? Is that a good outcome? Because you were trying to get headlines. You complained about your own beer. You were trying to get headlines. So is that job done? I think in that one, to a certain extent, it was a job done. And to kind of show you how odd things were back then. So this was kind of 2009 -2010, when we were starting to get momentum. And the beer scene was starting to change. So the big companies had it their own wafer way too long, and things were starting to change.

6:13There was a word ceremony in Scotland in 2010, put together by the BII, the British and keepers institute. And we'd got a heads up before that word ceremony. He guys, you're going to win that word for Scottish Barrow period of the year. So you guys better come to the word ceremony. So we went there, we booked a table. They were just about to announce that I was halfway up to the stage to get that word, and they announced a different company. I was like, okay. But then the other company didn't want to take that word because our name was who's Dave Duneshoff, he was like, well, we don't want it.

6:43So the next day I spoke to the person that organized the award ceremony. I was like, what happened? You told us we were going to win. And he was like, well, Diagio, one of the world's biggest drinks companies, they were the main sponsor. They told me five minutes before we were to give it to you. If they gave it to you guys, they was going to pull off future sponsorship. You're joking. So we felt we didn't have an option. So we put this online, it blew up. It was trending in Twitter globally that day. Diagio issued us a formal apology about the whole thing. That apology was in kind of a podcast news, but it just showed back then how the dynamic in the beer industry was changing and how the big beer companies and big drinks companies were acting towards that change of which the department was one manifestation of it.

7:26Did you take that personally? I took that as a sign that we're doing the right thing. So I think unless other businesses are copying you or trying to knock you, then you're not doing well enough. So unless you're doing something that's worthy of people copying it, then like a lot of people moan, oh, I'm being copied, it's like unless you're being copied, you need to up your game and you need to do better, unless your competitors have tightened not you down, you're not enough of a threat to your competition. So I took that as a sign that we're on the right track. We're doing the right thing. Let's keep going.

7:55The other extreme marketing that I saw which was when I first read, I thought this is fucking hilarious, is the Elvis estate tried to copyright infringy for calling your USB, which I think is your most popular USB. It is Elvis juice. Elvis juice based on your copyright statement. It's sort of like a basically a notice that you're violating the copyright. Yes. And you responded with some Elvis rhyme. We did. And on the art on the LinkedIn post that I saw, it said you changed your name to Elvis. Then the BBC comments, they didn't happen. Yeah. What is the truth in this one? What did you change your name to Elvis?

8:33Yeah, we did. And just to go back in the story, so Elvis sent, not Elvis himself. Elvis is a state since it's a letter. So we couldn't use the name Elvis in a beer. And if we did, we had to pay them a license fee for every can case and bottle of beer that we sold. So what myself and Martin did, we changed our names to Elvis and we sent them a letter back saying that they couldn't use our name when they're music and they had to pay us a license fee for every time they played one of Elvis's songs. Got a huge amount of publicity at the time. We were both Elvis for a few weeks. Then we changed our names back.

9:04So the BBC attacked us on that as they have on many things. However, the BBC misunderstood the Scottish procedure for changing their names. So they said, we didn't change your name by Deadpool. That's not a Scottish thing. In Scotland, you need an official declaration to change your name, which we did. So what's that just signing up as a paper? You sign up official declaration piece of paper and that counts as a name change in Scotland. And you don't even have to send it to anybody? Don't have to send it to anyone, Scotland. So we met the Scottish requirements, which is what we said we did. But yeah, my dad and mother was very unhappy and she insisted I changed my name back to James.

9:36Bruton's marketing has been so bold and it's been so stand out. And in terms of how hard you've, in terms of the return on every dollar you've spent, it seems to have been a pretty astounding return per dollar spent because you've done these big viral activations. A lot of them are like parodies or they're like taking the piss of big corporations or sticking it to the man in various ways or going at the, you know, the incumbents in the industry. Some of them though, that they, the, even the example you gave there of the complaining about your ambia with the portrait picture. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously the complaint wasn't real.

10:10Yeah. Because it was you. Because it was me. What is the line between, between like truth in, when you're doing these stunts and virality and untruth for you? And where, where do you play? Are you willing to do something that is from a marketing perspective that is not necessarily true, like in playing about your ambia, if you believe it'll help reach the outcome, which is to stick it to the Portman group. Yeah, well, I think with that one, it wasn't necessarily untrue because afterwards we said we made this complaint. So it was us who disclosed the fact that we made the complaint. Are you agree?

10:43Okay. And we disclosed that to just show how ridiculous the system, the system was. So if we hadn't said it was us that complained about it, then I would accept that was being a bit dishonest. But the fact that we came out and we said, hey, the system fundamentally doesn't work. And we wanted to expose that by making this complaint, was what we intended to do there. When we first thought to start talking about marketing, one of the things you said was, we made a lot of mistakes. Yeah. Took things too far. Yeah. What did you take too far? In hindsight now. Now that you're a big global brand and everyone is, you know, looking back at all the steps when you weren't so big.

11:15Yeah. I think the mistakes that we've made in marketing is when we've tried to do something, which is on the edge or which is controversial, which needs explaining. So if you look at the thing in its totality, then it is potentially a positive thing. But if you only see a snapshot of it, then you're take away from that could be negative. So I think a lot of the mistakes that we made from a market perspective. And we did some amazing things, but we did make some mistakes was when we got too clever with the concept and the intention behind it, which was genuine, got lost. So a famous example of one in the stakes that we made in marketing.

11:52And for International Women's Day, we wanted to highlight highlight the gender pay gap. This was a project that was put together by some of the fantastic women we've got in our business. And we made a beer called Pink IPA that we was get sell 21 % cheaper to women to highlight the gender pay gap, which was something that we felt passionate about. And then the show seeds from sale of that beer went to charity, which helped women and women's pay in the workplace and these kind of things. But then what happened was people just saw Pink IPA. And it looked like we were, it was, the beer itself was a parody of products which market themselves towards women.

12:26But then it just looked like another product that marketed themselves to our women. And if anyone like dug into it and understood, okay, this is to highlight the gender pay gap and they're doing some good with the money. And they're taking you cause people just saw the Pink IPA, they saw the image and came with the conclusion that we're just doing the thing that we were going to fight against. And that was a key key learning. People just see a snapshot of a thing. So you need to make sure that all of the message that you want to land as in that snapshot because a lot of people's not going to dig deeper into what it is.

12:52What I got from that was that like you've got to create a marketing campaign where the context is sort of can't be separated. It can't be separated exactly because it will be separated if it can be. Exactly. 100%.

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