BrewDog caught up in ASA tussle

BrewDog has become embroiled in a tussle with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after a complaint about language on the Scottish craft brewer’s website.

The ASA received one complaint about a typically bullish statement on the BrewDog website, which read: “BrewDog is a post Punk apocalyptic mother fu*ker of a craft brewery. Say goodbye to the corporate beer whores crazy for power and world domination … Ride toward anarchy and caramel craziness. Let the sharp bitter finish rip you straight to the tits. Save up for a Luger, and drill the bastards”.

The complaint “challenged whether the language used in the ad was likely to cause serious offence.”

In its ruling about the complaint, which the ASA upheld, the advertising watchdog said that the claims “breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Social responsibility) and 4.1 (Harm and offence).” The ASA added that “BrewDog said they had removed the claims from their website, but did not provide a substantive response to our enquiries.”

Adding: “The page must not appear again in its current form. We told BrewDog to take care to avoid causing serious offence in the future. We referred the matter to CAP’s Compliance team.”

However, while BrewDog may not have provided a substantive response to the ASA, the brewer was quick to send out a press release attacking the ASA for its action and defiantly saying it would not comply with the ruling.

In a statement BrewDog co-founder James Watt said: “We removed the statement from the site because we needed to make room to talk about our Equity for Punks offer. We’ll be putting it back up once the share offer is over.

“We have thousands of craft beer fans who have invested in what we do and how we do it – they are the people we listen to – not the killjoy, self-important pen pushers at the ASA in their Burton suits. Those mother fuckers don’t have any jurisdiction over us anyway.”

The ASA is the UK’s independent advertising watchdog and is responsible for regulating the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing.

Although the ASA does not have the power to fine companies or take them to court over non-compliance, the Office of Fair Trading is the ASA’s legal backstop for non-broadcast advertising and can implement trading and advertising sanctions against advertisers that fail to co-operate with the self-regulatory system.