The CEO of BrewDog James Watt has revealed he has paid out almost £500,000 to winners of its misleading “solid gold” beer can promotion.
Watts claims to have made some “costly mistakes” in a promotion which offered customers the chance to find a solid gold can hidden in cases in 2021.
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“Those were three very expensive mistaken tweets that I sent out in my enthusiasm for our new campaign,” Watt said in a post on LinkedIn on Saturday.
“The Gold Can saga was headline news. We were made to look dishonest and disingenuous and we took a real hammering online and in the press. Deservedly so. My initial tweets had been misleading and we deserved the flak.”
The co-founder of the Scottish Brewer said he was “misunderstood the process” of how the cans were made.He added that it was a “silly mistake” telling customers in initial promotional tweets that the cans were “solid gold”.
“All in all, it ended up costing me around £470,000 – well over 2 and a half years’ salary,” he added.
He continued to say that he had contacted all 50 gold can winners to offer them the “full cash amount” as an alternative to the prize if they were unhappy”.
In his post, the BrewDog boss revealed he now owned 40 of the gold cans.
The news comes as Watt responded to some of the allegations that have been plaguing the company since the drop of the BBC’s Good Ship Brewdog podcast earlier this year.
