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Advocate/Badvocate in the Beer Industry

Miller Brewing has its own fulltime employee blogging about the beer industry and its arch rival Anheuser-Busch. This is an unusual advocacy platform. Being an advocate for your own company and badvocating or breaking news about your competitor breaks several traditional and social media conventions and can certainly be described as “out of the box” thinking.

Jim Arndorfer’s blog is called BrewBlog and I first read about it in the WSJ. The blog has practically developed into its own news feed and has a fair amount of influence in the beer sector. The Journal article described how Arndorfer scooped the trade publications on a new ale being produced by A-B called Budweiser American Ale. As described, “Brew Blog is the latest and perhaps most unlikely front in Miller’s drive to rattle Anheuser.”

To make it all fair in love and war, Arndorfer also posts negative tales about his own company although my sense is that they are less problematic than the ones about A-B.

Wisely, Arndorfer makes no attempt to hide who his employer is. The blog makes it evidently clear that he is a Miller employee. Transparency rules.

Advocates and badvocates come from everywhere but this one is unusual at best. I had to read the article twice to understand how this actually worked. Gathering information on your rival to be published on a company blog is not business as usual.  Something to watch over time.

The blog is particulary interesting to read as talks between InBev and A-B heat up.