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Dogfish Head has nothing against magazines

2008-12-03

— Tim Nudd

Print media may be dying, but a splashy article in a high-profile magazine can still work wonders for obscure and semi-obscure brands.
    Delaware's Dogfish Head brewery learned that lesson in November, as it enjoyed the spotlight of a big feature in The New Yorker's annual food issue. The piece, focusing on brewery founder Sam Calagione's pursuit of "extreme beer," earned Dogfish more than 80 mentions on Nielsen-monitored blogs that week—the most since its introduction of a popular pumpkin ale the month before, and a generally woozy surge for a brand that tends to average around 40 mentions in a given week.
    Dogfish fans, and craft-beer drinkers in general, were responsible for most of the blog postings. "This week’s New Yorker features an unexpected treat by staff writer Burkhard Bilger," wrote Tastebud. "Call it the Barack Obama of beer articles: a ten-page analysis of the craft beer industry—and one of its provocateurs, Sam Calagione, of Dogfish Head Brewery—that sucker punches conventional wisdom." Added Draft News: "It’s an interesting—albeit dated—look into the world of craft beer. The article is a bear to read, but exhaustively reported and well worth any beer geek's time."
    The article, which also prompted a nice discussion over at Metafilter, even seemed to impress Dogfish's detractors, with one of the Burnside Writers admitting: "I've long held a West Coast-based bias against Dogfish Head, snootily accusing them of gimmickry. But the truth is, I can be a pretentious idiot. ... Dogfish Head loves to innovate. And if we've learned anything from American automakers, it's that we could use more innovation in this country."
    Mock Turtle, meanwhile, enjoyed the article but was feeling somewhat protective of his favorite brew: "My only concern is that this kind of publicity will catapult them from cult status to something like unavailability."
    It'll probably take more than 80 blog mentions for that to happen.

Wal-Mart reeling in wake of trampling death

2008-12-01

— Tim Nudd

Thanksgiving is always a good time for Wal-Mart. Well, almost always. This year, the big-box retailer saw its usual Thanksgiving-week spike of attention from Black Friday bloggers, earning more than 7,000 mentions on Nielsen-monitored blogs last week—the most in any single week so far this year. Unfortunately, a big chunk of those mentions concerned the tragic events of early Friday morning in Valley Stream, N.Y., where a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death by a mob of bargain-seeking shoppers.
There's plenty of blame to go around, and Wal-Mart's PR crisis is only one part of the story. Bloggers across the board seem to agree that a line has finally been crossed when it comes to Black Friday, and that some measures must be taken to rein in this potent mix of corporate and consumer greed. "What sales push could possibly be worth the death of a shopworker and the miscarriage of a woman’s baby?" asks Danny Brown. "What does it say about both humanity and the greed of retailers?" "As for the shoppers who ran amok in Valley Stream," adds Just a Random Thought, "they need to be taken to Pampaloma, Spain and replace the bulls because they are ANIMALS, plain and simple."
The incident also casts a spotlight on the use of product scarcity as a sales strategy. As MarketingProfs' Daily Fix blog writes: "If retailers are going to wield it, and other big sales tactics, they need to do so responsibly. I'm not asking for retailers to forego profits, but to protect their employees and shoppers."

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