Friday 20 May 2011

Take The Money And Run

I have to confess I never bother with the ads in either 'What's Brewing' and 'BEER", CAMRA's newspaper and periodical for members, respectively.

However, with all the heat over Roger Protz's April op-ed about keg, and the feedback in the current WB letters page being broadly supportive of the man they apparently call 'The Colonel', and then Tim Webb and Tandleman doing the head-to-head on whether CAMRA should support all craft beer on page 55 of BEER, I allowed myself a snigger at the ad on page 32 of the latter organ.

Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat's UK ad people have taken a full page to plug their Vedett lager to CAMRA members. I assume the Men In Red Braces managing the account see the membership as a perfect captive audience for their Imported Premium Lager. Indeed, I believe many CAMRA members are fond of Duvel and the Moortgat tradition. However, the more dogmatic of them (the "Kevin's") will probably be going up the wall and across the ceiling over an invitation to drink Vedett on draught.

I seem to recall complaints in issues of WB past, over the type of advertising CAMRA accepts (such important matters as implicitly condoning short measures seem to crop up regularly), but I suppose a fee is a fee, even if the product is that yucky "chemical fizz". I bet next month's letters page in WB will be interesting, though...

6 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

Although I'm sure it's far better, it's really no different in kind from imported Stella ;-)

On a related note, "Beer" does seem to featue a number of ads for hearing aids and suchlike which are clearly aimed at a certain demographic.

Tandleman said...

Pardon?

arn said...

I like the big WB page 3 advert for Everards Tiger 'Gold medallist, Brewing industry international awards 2011, Tiger Best Bitter'
and in small type
'International Keg ale competition'

Sid Boggle said...

@ arn: nice use of a sneaky asterisk there... 8-)

Unknown said...

Either someone in St Alban's hasn't read the policy documents or they've decided any revenue is good revenue. The Everards advert had me in stitches.

Sid Boggle said...

It's for the good of the Campaign, Simon... B-)