If you have ever had children or grandchildren, or if you have ever been a child or grandchild, you may recall Roald Dahl’s delightful, bizarre and at times downright frightening story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you aren’t much of a reader perhaps you have seen one of the two screen versions, the 1971 release of “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” with Gene Wilder or the 2005 Johnny Depp version “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. There also happens to be an opera based on the book, for those of you who are too classy to visit this website and our editor, entitled “The Golden Ticket”. If you are a big Wonka fan you will be pleased to know there is a 2023 prequel coming out exploring Willy Wonka’s woots (roots) which I am sure will be fascinating. Perhaps worthy of a COMDB movie review? Perhaps.
If you are familiar with the book you will remember that in a classic marketing campaign with ulterior motives, Willy Wonka put 5 golden tickets into the Wonka chocolate bars, and the holders of the tickets were invited to the factory for an exclusive tour. SPOILER ALERT. You may also recall that 4 of the five ticket holders, who were unable to follow Wonka’s directions, were unceremoniously ejected from the tour, leaving Charlie Bucket as the only ticket holder left after the proverbial dust and sprinkles had settled.
James Watt*, the founder and CEO of the Scottish brewery BrewDog, the UK’s most popular craft beer according to him, is a fan of the book. So in another case of life imitating art, Watt decided to put 50 gold beer cans into beer cases, and the lucky finders of these treasures did not get a tour but in fact got to keep their gold beer cans! Not the first time gold tickets have been used as a promotional campaign, but perhaps the most extravagant win?
Another ingenious give away marketing campaign. What could go wrong? I am glad you asked. Watt explains in his LinkedIn post, entitled “A £500,000 mistake. Made by me. 😕” (his emoji) that in his enthusiasm about the campaign he sent out many tweets. He estimated 50 posts. In 3 of them he mentioned that the cans were “solid gold” and worth £15,000 ($25,000 CDN). Gold price fluctuates drastically but to put things into perspective, it is estimated that a solid gold can would be worth about $600,000 CDN.
The cans were quite impressive looking but of course not solid gold, but brass with gold plating, with an estimated value of $6,500 CDN. Not a bad find in your 24, but far short of some people’s expectations. A number of winners contacted the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority to complain about their win. The ASA agreed that the promotional campaign was misleading and social and traditional media took over in what Watt describes as a “media storm”.
So Watt decided to demonstrate personal accountability for what at the time seemed like a fairly minor faux pas and out of his own pocket offered to buy the cans back from winners for $25,000CDN a pop, and according to him it was a $820,000 CDN touch. Those 3 tweets cost him $273,000 a piece. Ouch. He estimated the hit to be 2 ½ years of his salary.**
Not the first time a high-profile person has tweeted something they regret, but maybe the first time they have taken personal accountability for it. That’s the ticket.
*Editor’s Comment: Not to be confused with James Watt, the inventor, who perfected the steam engine.
**Editor’s Comment: To put all this into perspective, Watt’s (the BrewDog Watt, not the steam engine Watt) estimated net worth is $430 Million.
That’s the golden nugget here! Personal accountability. He doesn’t blame just basically says “well crap, that was a mistake!”
Roy I sure hope they were allowed to drink the beer before selling back the can. Otherwise it would be a tough decision.