Carlton & United Breweries CEO steps down after misguided campaign
The public backlash against the latest Great Northern beer campaign has been so harsh that Carlton & United Breweries CEO, Danny Celoni, has stepped down.
Late last month, The Great Northern Brewing Company launched its ‘Outdoors for a Cause’ campaign, which aimed to raise funds to buy and protect parcels of land, which would be designated as national parks.
The campaign was a partnership with non-profit organisation Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, and rather than see this as a charitable acts, various groups claimed the company was surreptitiously planning to turn state parks into national parks.
Reminiscent of the runaway train that was the 2023 Bud Light boycott, the internet was quickly flooded with claims from 4WD groups that the brewery had “gone woke with a campaign to help get us locked out of forests”, which led to videos of angry outdoors-types running over cans of Great Northern in their four-wheel-drives.
Not surprisingly, within a few days, Great Northern’s marketing head Zac Gelman said the campaign has been “paused, following feedback from our passionate drinkers” and the donation to the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife for buying up national park land “will instead be used for the preservation of endangered species.”
Gelman added: “Whether it’s hiking, fishing, 4-wheel driving or just relaxing, Great Northern drinkers use and preserve their precious spots in the great outdoors and we support them.”
And now the CEO of Carlton & United Breweries has stood down – although there is mixed messaging from parent company Asahi Group as to whether this was a direct result of the advertisement backlash.
An Asahi spokesman claims Celoni “decided to leave the business late last year following our decision to reorganise Asahi’s Australian and NZ business” adding this was “well before the ‘Outdoors for a Cause’ national parks donation campaign – which we terminated last week”.
Celoni
“Danny is not leaving because of Great Northern’s abandoned ‘Outdoors for a Cause’ campaign.”
Asahi CEO, Amanda Sellers, however, said Celoni’s decision to depart was a “great disappointment”, saying “Danny is an incredibly respected CEO and industry leader, so we understand Danny’s decision to pursue new opportunities at the CEO level.”
Nigel Parsons will become the company’s chief commercial officer, and will start on April 1. Celoni will remain at the company until the end of June.
Keep up to date with the latest in media and marketing
Got a tip?
Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
Linkedin
topics
Carlton & United Breweries
Danny Celoni
Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife
Outdoors for a Cause
The Great Northern Brewing Company
Have to feel for the guy – who knew wanting to protect the bush was ‘woke’. Imagine if their consumers put the same effort into targeting Lendlease and co. for actually destroying what they profess to love so much.
User ID not verified.
Seriously? What a storm in a teacup. Great Northern has built it’s brand on the Beer for the Great Outdoors. This campaign simply looked to put some of the profits back into the Great Outdoors that they were leveraging to build their brand. Granted, a small misstep that many of the associated brand activities like camping and fishing can’t be carried out in National Parks – but the misinformation and over-reaction here that this would turn State Parks into National Parks that leads to a CEO resignation is just letting the anti-woke, keyboard warrior police win the day. I totally agree brands shouldn’t just do purpose driven work for the sake of ‘brand-standing’. But that doesn’t mean we have to lie down and let Trumpism’s anti-woke shut down all and every purpose driven campaign. Looking after the environment isn’t woke, it’s critical. I’m all for getting rid of brand-standing and CSR campaigns that have nothing to do with a brand or product. But I’m even more impassioned about not letting the bullies #boycott and cower brands into risk-aversion and vanilla campaigns that fear standing out.
P.S. I don’t work for Asahi or an agency that works with them. I don’t even like Great Northern Beer.
User ID not verified.
All the anti woke crowd were absolutely whipped to a frenzy by the typical fear mongering and and extremist positions put forward by most of the Murdoch style media. It was pathetic. And yet somehow anyone who has any concern for anything remotely sane is now a far left extremist fascist… truly bizarre
User ID not verified.
Would be interesting to weigh the value of losing these customers vs the potential gains of drinkers who maybe hold more enlightened views.
Also, that is a massively misleading headline Mumbrella. Come on.
User ID not verified.
Completely disjointed from their customer’s values. Advertising people don’t drink Great Northern
User ID not verified.
Have your say