"The whole AB-InBev Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl has set off some interesting comment and analysis, but the one that's driving me nuts is the one that centers on "I can't believe they busted on Pumpkin Peach Ales when the brewery they just bought (Elysian) makes one."
I don't know why Pumpkin Peach Ales were chosen for ridicule (I'm assuming the alliteration), but drawing any meaningful connection between the ad and the sale of Elysian says more about the ignorance of the speaker than anything resembling a fact. It's like sitting on the toilet and taking credit for the turd hitting the water. Yeah, they both happened but there wasn't much skill or planning required by anyone to make it happen. It's just how those things go.
Do you know how long it takes to get an ad with the visibility of a Super Bowl ad made? Hint: the discussions about next year's ad have already started. Likely for a couple of months already. There probably isn't a script yet, but serious work is already being done. The sale of Elysian wasn't announced until two weeks ago. Those things clearly take a while as well, but there's no reason to believe that anyone working on the ad were ever aware of the existence of the people who were working on buying Elysian. If anyone ever made the connection (I'm guessing someone did) they were already way too far down the tracks (and probably too far down the food chain) to do much about it.
That, in itself, is a good reason to hate sales like this one. People talk in vague terms about the "soulless corporations" and the "soul of craft beer" and stuff like that. This is a concrete example of what folks are talking about when they say this. These huge corporations aren't bureaucracies, they're multiple bureaucracies shoved together in ways that make no sense and don't talk to each other. They survive because no matter how stupid one small group of people might be, no one is stupid enough to bring the whole thing crashing down. People say "too big to fail" but they always leave out "even though they richly deserve to." Any given person can be stupid, but to really do it right form a committee and have a bunch of meetings.
My only point is that when you rip Darth Vader's mask off, the face that's waiting for you is Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss. That's a good enough reason to hate the sale all by itself, but saying "gotcha" as the result of the left hand of a huge corporation not knowing what the right is doing kind of makes you look as stupid and clueless as them.
And they have more money. In their way of accounting for it, they won."
Thanks for sharing man!
