Dogfish Head Midas Touch, the favorite beer of the Red Cross
CNNmoney reported that a Red Cross employee sent out a personal tweet ("Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head's Midas Touch beer...when we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd.") from the Official Red Cross Twitter page. While it isn’t something a non-profit wants on their Twitter page, it wasn’t the end of the world. They deleted it and apologized in a comedic way. Case closed, or it would have been if Dogfish Head hadn’t stepped in.
One of my classmates wrote about the Red Cross’ response, but I’d like to focus on Dogfish Head’s actions after they found out about the tweet. It was reported that fans of the beer started a donation campaign using #gettngslizzerd. Dogfish’s social media team found out about the tweet and decided to join in with beer-for-blood deals at places where their beer is sold.
Dogfish Head Brewery did a great thing. They aren’t a large company and because of that they can’t reach the people that the Red Cross can, but by finding an opportunity in a mistake and using that to reach people and do something positive they’ve made their presence known in a big way.
Both of these companies handled this incident expertly. The Red Cross has created a unique giving page for all the #gettngslizzerd supporters and Dogfish Head is still interacting with their customers through all forms of social media. More companies should follow their example.
I must have missed this completely! Between commuting and class I live under a rock. Thanks for a through post about it! I think that it's great when a small company teams up with a not-for-profit company because it's like two underdogs! I think dogfish's response was great and it could be used as a case study in the future!
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting! It's stories like this that make social media so much more fun. Yeah, it's great to use social media sites for PR, but when it is this interesting and creative (and from a mistake is even greater) it seems to genuinely interest a lot more people. I think Dogfish not only did a great thing for their company, but also really helped the Red Cross out of their jam at the same time.
ReplyDeleteAt my internship, we talked about this very incident at our staff meeting and couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes when we read it on the newsfeed. I'm curious what happened to the employee.
ReplyDeleteOn brighter side, I agree with you that both companies handled this very well; a crisis was avoided on the Red Cross' part.
Dogfish Head Brewery was the star of the Beer Business Documentary: Beer Wars. These guys are far and away the exception in the beer world. Not only do they still run their brewery the old fashioned way but they do it in a fun way. Still an incredibly small business, Dogfish Head is still resisting the pressure from Anheuser-Bush to buyout their company and broaden their already existing beer monopoly. Instilling this sense that they are a unselfish-socially responsible company can only insure that their business will continue to grow and they can continue to resist the pressure from the big beer companies.
ReplyDeleteI missed this completely, but I'm glad that you posted about it. I think this is a great example of how a potentially disasterous situation was turned into an exceptional one. Both companies used this situation to their benefit and the benefit of others.
ReplyDeleteAs a small company, Dogfish Head Brewery became an excellent example of how a small company can integrate themselves with such a large, and globally recognized organization.
I had no idea about this story even months later, and I have to admit the things that occur in the PR world are not only unreal, but so exciting. It's terrible when disasters like this can occur, but there is such a gratifying feeling when we the pr people get to help fix these problems. As Megan said above, not only is pr for helping disasters but it helps small companies integrate with larger ones. bravo paul
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