Oh dear. Diageo have got themselves in a bit of bother with small brewers BrewDog. You only need to look at Diageo’s apology to see how they got into trouble in the first place (and why BrewDog deserve to win more awards than them).

Diageo’s at-arm’s-length statement vs…
A Diageo spokesperson: “There was a serious misjudgement by Diageo staff at the awards dinner on Sunday evening in relation to the Bar Operator of the Year Award, which does not reflect in any way Diageo’s corporate values and behaviour. We would like to apologise unreservedly to BrewDog and to the British Institute of Innkeeping for this error of judgement and we will be contacting both organisations imminently to express our regret for this unfortunate incident.” (Read the rest here.)

…BrewDog’s feisty blog
Once you cut through the glam veneer of pseudo corporate responsibility this incident shows them to be a band of dishonest hammerheads and dumb ass corporate freaks. No soul and no morals, with the integrity of a rabid dog and the style of a wart hog. Perhaps more tellingly it is an unwitting microcosm for just how the beer industry is changing and just how scared and jealous the gimp-like establishment are of the craft beer revolutionaries.
We would advise them to drink some craft beer. To taste the hops and live the dream. It is hard to be a judas goat when you are drinking a Punk IPA. (Read the rest here.)

Obviously this has turned into great PR for BrewDog. Good on them, we say. There are many more things we could say about Diageo’s handling of this (except Diageo won’t let us comment on their site). But their corporate words alone speak volumes. No one at Diageo is accepting responsibility. It’s all ‘corporate values and behaviour’. They can’t even say sorry without wrapping it up in ‘to express our regret for this unfortunate incident’ formality. BrewDog’s blog, on the other hand, isn’t just written more like a real person, it oozes personality. It sounds like them and their Punk IPAs.

Diageo probably hope that their anonymous formal statement will help contain the bad PR, but all it’s really doing is playing to BrewDog’s David vs Goliath story. It’s hamming up their role as the villain of the piece. They may as well issue a photo of a shadowy figure with a twirly moustache and cigar for all the good their corporate statement does.