“Fight For Me, Don’t Sell To Me.” Brewdog: A Business Punk Case Study
Maybe you first heard of Brewdog in 2012 when the company projected an image of its naked founders onto the UK Houses of Parliament when Diageo intervened to prevent Brewdog from winning Innkeeper of the year.
Or maybe it was in 2014 when Brewdog launched a new beer called “Hello, My Name Is Vladimir” with a painting of the Russian leader in drag, in protest over Russia’s new law banning gay propaganda.
Or maybe it was in 2016 when Brewdog drove a tank through London to celebrate the opening of its first London Pub.
But, here’s how you DIDN’T learn of Brewdog, You never saw a Brewdog logo on a sports jersey, a race car, or a Superbowl ad. You never saw a Brewdog press release blasted to a million newswires. You never saw Brewdog buy social media ads.
They never had to. They were famous already.
Brewdog was founded by James Watt in 2007. It’s the only company in UK history to be named to the Sunday Times list of fastest growing companies for six consecutive years. While UK beer sales contracted by -2.5% annually from 2014 - 2021, Brewdog sales grew 38.5% annually. Its flagship beer, Punk IPA, was the best-selling craft beer in the UK for three consecutive years, and in 2017 five of the top ten UK best-selling craft beers were BrewDog brands. Brewdog is a testament to Punk as a business strategy.
Its brand is so irreverent, audacious, and provocative that it created a new category, rather than just a new entrant in an existing, stagnant category. Brewdog saw that there was a huge, mostly silent customer demographic who didn’t fit into the saturated consumer demographics of Lager Lads or Old Man Ales: the punk. Punks are the defiant, unique, independent thinkers. For Brewdog, the strategy has been to be so outlandish, irreverent, and audacious that the punk consumer embraced Brewdog as an uprising - not just a beer.
Here are the pillars of their strategy.
Provoking Authority Earns Authority
Here is a short list of every powerful regulator, country, or company that tried to fight or ban Brewdog:
Russia
China
The Portman Group (the alcoholic regulatory body of the UK)
Innis & Dunn (a conglomerate of Scottish microbreweries)
Diageo
Sounds scary, right? But, I believe there’s a secret that Brewdog never told us: they were never really prosecuted by them. Not really. I suspect there were a few small scale nasty memos sent by some middle manager that any decent lawyer would dismiss as bullshit. But Brewdog embraced these missives as an opportunity. By embracing the fight Brewdog demonstrated they were growing too fast to be ignored. That an unjust network of powerful obstructionists were conspiring to snuff them out. They were fighting for every underdog business that felt squeezed. Brewdog became synonymous with standing up to powerful injustice. Their brand became a movement for the scrappy, punk underdog, rather than just an option for people who enjoy hoppy IPAs.
It also meant that they didn’t spend a fortune on paid ads.
The lesson here is that provocative acts of defiance are an extremely cost-effective way to build solidarity with your core customers. They see you as fighting for them. Everyone else is just selling to them.
When you provoke authority, you earn authority.
Never choose between serving your customers or your investors.
In 2009 Brewdog chartered a helicopter and dropped taxidermied fat cats with parachutes in front of the London Stock Exchange. This was to celebrate that they were NOT going public on the London Stock Exchange. Instead they launched the largest crowdfunding campaign in UK history, equity for punks. During the 2009 financial crisis the company maxed out its lines of credit. It faced a choice to bring in outside investors, or to raise capital from its fans. It chose the latter, and it was the most successful crowdfunding campaign in UK history, raising an estimated $100mn in capital from customers. Those shares have increased five-fold. Brewdog also eventually raised capital from private equity, but its customers own a bigger stake than institutional investors. This funding model reinforced Brewdog as a movement and a community rather than just a brand. It ensured that it would never have to choose between the demands of its customers and its investors. They were one and the same.
Growing Up Weird Makes A Punk Entrepreneur
When Brewdog expanded to the US, James Watt filmed an interview with his US CEO Tanisha Robinson, a gay, Black Mormon woman from rural Missouri. James and Tanisha talked about growing up ‘weird’, being a cultural outlier, and how it fueled their success as entrepreneurs.
James explained “A lot of people who've done well in business, especially entrepreneurs, have gone through a period where they don’t fit in somewhere. And when you don’t fit in somewhere you put less emphasis on what people think. You have to be numb to people’s feelings sometimes. You become fearless about expressing what you think, and unafraid of the consequences.”
That exact dynamic is the premise behind the exceutive community of business punks that I’ve built, Punks & Pinstripes. Many people who are successful in business don’t fit into the communities created for successful business leaders. Many incredible leaders in huge companies aren’t seduced by Davos or 5-star golf resorts or McKinsey. Many astounding entrepreneurs don’t fit into the techbro/ girlboss founder archetype. These are the business punks. For a long time business punks have had to shoehorn themselves into communities that weren’t made for them, and didn’t particularly like them - often because it looked bad not to join. (I joined a few and they sucked).
My goal is that Punks & Pinstripes is to executive communities what Brewdog is to breweries.
If you’re a Business Punk and are looking for your tribe you should apply to be one of Punks & Pinstripes’ next 25 members before our January 31 application deadline. We accept 25 new members a quarter, and membership is capped at 200.
