The Auld Yin is thinking of launching a new regular monthly column dedicated entirely to companies who have clearly taken their lead from shock-brewers BrewDog who built an entire global company on, well, outrageous PR stunts.
The main problem, UTC grudgingly admits, is that BrewDog are actually very good at coming up with clever PR ideas while the wannabes basically aren’t. Take provocatively named Riot Squad, an e-liquid company that recently tried in the most unimaginative way to capitalise on Irn-Bru changing its recipe to reduce sugar.
The people at Riot Squad – who refer to themselves as “lunatics” – recently went on a “mission of mayhem” to picket the Irn-Bru offices in Milton Keynes “on behalf of the good people of Scotland”. This absolutely carnage-fuelled stunt involved such shocking tactics as sticking some cardboard signs outside the offices using the worst-possible ‘Bru’ puns. Mayhem indeed.
“Being the rascals they are,” continued the press release, they came up with such poetic gems as: ‘You’ve BRU-ised our hearts’, ‘This could be the end of our BRU-mance’ and UTC’s personal favourite ‘Orange you out of your mind BRU’, which only works in an English accent. Oh, the irony. [Ed – Shouldn’t that be ‘Oh the IRN-y?]
You’ll be astonished to find that Riot Squad have also launched their own Iron Bru e-liquid “in homage”, which was presumably the point of the whole sorry episode in the first place.
