Boycotting Is a Slippery Slope

Or preferably just don't piss in our pockets....

 

Find me a business with a perfect track record of truth telling and holding to their values and I'll show you a closed shop.

(Obviously this is a generalization but morally grey decisions are inherent in business)

 

It is a pretty significant generalization.

Though not a question of morality (Which is a what an individual considers right or wrong. This is a debate about ethics), this issue is not grey. It is quite black and white.

 

I have legitimately enjoyed this discussion and want to thank you for letting me speak my mind and receive it civilly.

With that being said this conversation is moving more towards a discussion on what we find to be ethical in business and I don't see a logical conclusion, especially in a setting not in person with a few beers. So this is my stop.

Cheers!

 

As have I.

Awww . . . come on, man. Don't stop now. This is just getting fun. We can stop talking about ethics and morality, if you want. I don't mind.

 

I'm still in the "voting with my wallet" crowd when it comes to purchases of big beer and captive craft. But if BA runs an ad for ABI or one of their subsidiaries, I'm not going to get my panties in a wad over it. BA is also a strong resource for keeping the discussion alive and for maintaining transparency when it comes to beer, and in exchange for that value they offer me and all other BA's, they have to get revenue from somewhere. I've never really had an issue with any free site that uses advertising while offering me free access to a service I enjoy, so as much as I may rant at times about ABI, this is really a non-issue for me. I am also a gamer, and someone who seriously dislikes buying games from EA, but I don't boycott gaming sites that have ads for EA, either. Now if BA actually sold out to ABI, then I'd have a tough decision to make. But barring that, advertising is advertising, and the value this site gives me is more important than "ad-purity," for want of a better term.

 

Curious as why you see taking advertising dollars from ABI as different than taking an investment from ABI.

 

As you are fond of saying, 'indeed'. I think you have clearly pointed this out to anyone who did not originally get that this was the main issue, stated clearly from the beginning of this thread and premised by the original article, post #1.

You very apparently do.

Now you are desecrating sacred text. You are still new here and don't understand the meaning of this mantra when it is invoked. Respect Beer, on this website, trumps everything. And it is meant to include all beer.

 

Agreed

A fair point, but I still think there is a large distinction between being a website that offers reviews and educational information about beer, which includes ads for beer, and being a site that does all of those things, while also being owned by a brewery. I don't see taking money to run ads from a brewery, as being anything close to selling ownership to a brewery.

 

Because there is a huge difference. If you sell advertising to a business, you are selling them a service. If you sell them your company...well you have just handed over ownership of the service you were previously selling. If you get a ride in a taxi, you have paid for a ride to a destination--you haven't bought the taxi cab itsself.

This does of course speak to the point of the article. Boycotting can indeed be a slippery slope. But if one chooses not to buy, one can also choose when and where to draw a line on what they will or will not boycot.

I do this all the time. I choose not to buy ABI products or products from ABI's captive craft breweries primarily because of what it is doing to my local breweries and to other independent breweries that I would prefer to buy. But that ad for 10 barrel in BA's magazine or here on the site is not really contributing to the reason I vote with my wallet. I don't have to like it, but I can still make separate decisions about where I draw a line in services I will not use/purchases I will not make.

 

I truthfully do not. If BA hadn't made a substantial effort to point out how bad ABI is for craft beer, it wouldn't have mattered at all to me.

I really hope this is all tongue-in-cheek.

 

Are you saying that you don't think advertisers control content?

 

In theory, and sometimes practice they can. An advertiser can threaten to pull their ads or follow through and pull those ads, in the event that they don't like the content/activities, etc of an entity that they have used for advertising. It is then at the behest of the entity to make a decision. But advertising and ownership are still two entirely different things. Given that BA has run ads for 10 Barrel, and followed that up with articles such as the "Zombie Beer" article, and others, I see no evidence that they are controlling content on this site or in the BA magazine. If I did see such evidence, I would find it troubling, of course.

 

A bunch of arguments being made concerning the simple business decision to accept advertising from all beer companies on a beer site. I have the following questions regarding the ethical stands of those arguing against that decision.

-Do you condemn beverage stores that carry ABI products? How about if they have ABI advertising on the building, like a Bud Light neon sign, does that push them into morally questionable territory? How about grocery stores that do? How about bars/taverns that do? Do you condemn a pub that has Wicked Weed on the menu? How far does your condemnation reach?

-Should BeerAdvocate disallow reviews of ABI owned beers? Would it be more moral, less moral, or neutral if BA disallowed reviewing ABI beers?

-Which big corporations need to be condemned? ABI is the obvious leader of the axis of evil. Which other ones do we need to pay attention to so as to be able to know when moral decisions need to be made? Duvel? Heineken? Sapporo? Which ones? Which are the most evil/least evil? And additionally, which of the craft brewers that is now growing in size will be the next to get huge, and publicly owned, and graduate into being evil corporate beer? Maybe we now need to preemptively move against them in our moral judgements?



-

 

Do those stores actively speak out against ABI?

Personally, I think this is the right move for them due to their stance, but they've said that allowing said beers to be reviewed doesn't affect said stance.

I've not heard BA speak out against any other brewery or beer conglomerate. Have you?

 

Good for BA and the "Bros", that advertising money is gonna go somewhere, it might as well go to our friends who can really use it. I've been in business a long time, and sometimes you gotta sell a little of your soul to the devil to keep the doors open. It ain't getting any easier out there, that's for sure. Walk in the other guys shoes before you get too self righteous.

 

No you don't.

A brewery or another beer rating website or a homebrewing supplier takes money from ABI and that's bad, but BA takes it from ABI and that's good?

OK.

 

Anyone who's spent the time reading my sometimes verbose posts on this website is probably reasonably aware of where I come down on the whole Big Beer vs. Craft controversy. But if not, the short(ish) version is that I generally have no objections to Big Beer buying into Craft because I think that,

1. Craft beer, as a market is too robust at this point for Big Beer to have a viable opportunity to eradicate it, the same way McDonald's is never going to eradicate "craft burger" joints no matter how upscale they make their burgers so long as there is demand for "craft burgers". In other words, we, as consumers hold the key.
2. My primary interest in beer is for the way it tastes, which is to say I prefer to see good beer owned by ABI, SABMiller, Constellation, Sapporo, etc on the shelves over bad beer owned by Local Beerz Microbrewery and Independent Only Brewing Co.
3. Big Beer's investment in Craft is, by and large, a helpful thing for the spread of consumer interest in Craft--spread in interest will ultimately help the brewers making the best product and grow the customer base for ALL craft brewers. Well, the good ones anyway.

All that said, the principle expressed in this article (boycotts are a slippery slope and we're not endorsing ABI just because they paid us to place an advertisement) is one that seemingly contradicts a very common argument that gets made in the interest of not supporting All Things ABI

The anti-ABI argument I'm referring to was especially relevant during the Wicked Weed sale, when seemingly everyone in the anti-ABI crowd was rooting on the rapid undoing of the Wicked Weed Funk Fest, as a huge chunk of the craft brewers involved rushed to "take a stand" against ABI by withdrawing from participation in the 100% charity-benefitting festival. In that case, the basic logic was that not only must ABI be prevented from directly profiting from revenue earned by Wicked Weed (as you might do via product boycott), but they couldn't even be allowed to successfully host an event for which ABI/WW would receive zero revenue. The reasoning being that anything that even benefitted ABI was akin to buying into their stated goal of destroying Craft Beer as we know it.

So, again, while I personally agree with the logic presented in the above article--BeerAdvocate should *absolutely* sell advertising to ABI or anyone else who wants to buy it that makes sense within the relevant industries--it is strange to see so many people suddenly see no issue with BA providing advertising space, given that the space will almost certainly benefit ABI and could even contribute to the fear some often express of ABI getting revenue from people who don't understand that brands like 10 Barrel are owned by ABI.

Ultimately, I applaud BA for candid and transparent about their feelings on this matter, because while I didn't agree with the prior two articles related to the interplay between Big Beer and Craft, it's stances like the one in this article that get lost in the shuffle of the Big Beer v. Craft culture war.

 

Exactly.