Big Branding Mistake by Miller Brewing
In branding, offending any community or minority group is a recipe for disaster. Before launching any campaign or program, you should always consider the general sentiment of your target community. A very recent example of this is the beer giant Miller Brewing Co.
Last September, Miller sponsored Folsom Street Fair, an annual homosexual “leather” street fair in San Francisco performed in public. Although the company has been supporting this group for so several years without any complaints, this time it’s controversial.
Folsom’s ad was a parody of Da Vinci’s the “Last Supper” painting and portrayed Jesus as a shirtless sadomasochist. This mockery offended many Christians and prompted numerous groups to ask Miller to remove its logo from the said poster.
The groups led by New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights also called for a boycott of Miller products when the company failed to remove its logo immediately. More importantly, they asked the company never to sponsor such an outrageous anti-Christian event in the future.
Eventually, Miller agreed to remove its logo and issued a formal apology. It also said it completed “an exhaustive audit of its marketing procedures for approving local marketing and sales sponsorships” and will tighten “compliance procedures” to make sure this incident will not happen again.
Though there is no data to show the impact of this boycott, you should always be cautious and anticipate possible problems. Of course it is virtually impossible to please everybody but you should focus your efforts on the so-called pressure groups or communities with enough muscle to hurt the sales or profit of your business.
