Brewdog solid gold can scandal: what was promotion campaign, what went wrong, how much has it cost James Watt?

Brewdog founded James Watt has opened up about “costly mistakes” he made after misleading tweets during a promotion led to a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA). The beer company was ruled to have misled consumers during its ‘soild gold’ campaign in 2021.

The promotion saw the brewing company place gold cans inside crates of beer which were to be sold across the UK to lucky customers. Watt said he had made “some costly mistakes” after he tweeted false information about the campaign, however he added that he “falsely” believed this to be true.

The ‘solid gold campaign’ was launched by Brewdog in 2021. It offered a promotion to customers, with those finding a gold can within a case of Brewdog able to keep the momento.

However, for those who did find the limited edition cans, there was confusion over the makeup, and therefore value, of the can. The ASA has said that it received around 25 complaints from people who had been affected.

What happened during Brewdog’s ‘solid gold’ campaign?

In October 2021, the brand announced that gold cans would be placed into packs of Brewdog beer. These cans were to be limited and were to be placed within random packs.

However, confusion over the promotion surfaced when Watt tweeted that customers would be able to get their hands on “solid gold” cans in tweet promoting the campaign. In fact, the cans which had been placed into packs and which some customers had now found were only gold-plated.

Brewdog said at the time that the value of each can was £15,000 each, however customers quickly questioned this after finding out they were not made of solid gold. Brewdog was then reported to the ASA for misleading advertising over the ‘solid gold’ claims, with the regulator later saying that the value of a solid gold 330ml at the time would have been around £363,000.

Eventually, the ASA ruled against Brewdog, with this decision upheld. Watt has now revealed that he has forked out for the “costly mistakes”.

How much did the ‘solid gold’ campaign cost James Watt?

Speaking about the episode on social media site Linkedin, Watt revealed that he has handed over almost half a million pounds to those who found the cans. He said: “All in all, it ended up costing me around £470,000 - well over two and a half years’ salary,”

The money was paid to customers who had found the cans, with Watt now in possesion of 40 of the 50 manufactured cans. They were offered the inital £15,000 “full cash amount” of the originally advertised valuation of a solid gold can.

Watt added: “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.”