{"id":1207,"date":"2018-10-25T13:15:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T12:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2018-10-25T15:52:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T14:52:28","slug":"us-beer-brand-hires-media-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/us-beer-brand-hires-media-house\/","title":{"rendered":"US beer brand hires Media House"},"content":{"rendered":"

American\u00a0craft beer company\u00a0Scofflaw<\/strong><\/a> has\u00a0appointed Media House International to take over its\u00a0public relations and communications\u00a0after it was\u00a0hit by\u00a0a rogue press release scandal.<\/p>\n

The MHI team will act to\u00a0repair any damage to its reputation\u00a0as well as helping the US brewer find another British distributor after its previous arrangement with UK-based BrewDog was terminated.<\/p>\n

Media House \u2013 which\u00a0specialises in public relations<\/strong><\/a>, crisis communications<\/strong><\/a> and public affairs<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 approached Scofflaw after its then PR firm distributed without sign-off a\u00a0media\u00a0release promising to get the UK “beered up redneck style” and saying that supporters of Donald Trump would receive free Scofflaw ale\u00a0at BrewDog bars.<\/p>\n

Several US retailers, repulsed by the Trump association, stopped selling Scofflaw beer.<\/p>\n

But the release had been\u00a0sent out\u00a0without the express approval of\u00a0Scofflaw boss Matt Shirah, who said\u00a0it also featured several inaccuracies, and he stressed that the Atlanta-based brewer does not and has never endorsed the US President.<\/p>\n

A swift retraction followed, but it was too late to prevent uproar spreading across\u00a0mainstream\u00a0media and social platforms, leading BrewDog to sever its distribution agreement\u00a0with Scofflaw.<\/p>\n

The rogue\u00a0PR agency issued a public apology and suspended an employee over the mistake\u00a0but\u00a0Scofflaw is\u00a0now pursuing\u00a0legal action against them.<\/p>\n

\"Scofflaw

Scofflaw CEO Matt Shirah (right) and brewmaster Travis Herman<\/p><\/div>\n

Scofflaw also claims\u00a0that BrewDog did not work with it\u00a0to repair the damage, even after it became clear that Scofflaw wasn\u2019t responsible for the rogue release.<\/p>\n

Matt Shirah said\u00a0his business had been “been thrown under several buses at one time” and that his company’s previous\u00a0PR advisors “did not consider it was obliged to obtain approval” from its\u00a0clients before issuing a release.<\/p>\n

He added:\u00a0“I expect it was naive for me to believe that they would have, or should have, a certain duty of care when it comes to releasing messages that can have a global impact on a client’s brand.<\/p>\n

\n

‘We do beer, not politics’<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“So yes, it has been a disappointing experience on many fronts.<\/p>\n

“We have been thrown under several buses at one time. I will resist the urge to offer more commentary due to all of the pending litigation and related negotiations.<\/p>\n

“I expect it will all come out in the wash. I would add one thing, however \u2013\u00a0we do beer, not politics.”<\/p>\n

Media House International executive chairman Jack Irvine<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0approached Shirah after reading about the scandal in PRWeek<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said: “Immediately after we saw the story, one of my colleagues Rebecca Durnin contacted Scofflaw and spoke to the boss (Matt Shirah), who was very concerned about the damage this had caused his business.<\/p>\n

“I said to him\u00a0that, with our crisis management expertise, we could help him\u00a0get through this and help him\u00a0out, not just in PR, but I know a lot of people in the brewing and whisky industry.<\/p>\n

“My remit is to get them through this period, get re-established and hopefully strike a new distribution deal in Britain.”<\/p>\n

Irvine, who has been to Atlanta, Georgia, where Scofflaw is brewed, said the craft brewery produces a high-quality product, is run by “really professional guys” and he is confident of helping them find a new distribution route into the UK market.<\/p>\n

He added: “Matt is a finance industry veteran with significant experience in the ‘Big Four’ accounting environment and the beverage industry.<\/p>\n

“He doesn\u2019t suffer fools gladly. Along with his legal team in London, I am going to help him resolve this mess and introduce him to beer distributors who know what they\u2019re doing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American\u00a0craft beer company\u00a0Scofflaw has\u00a0appointed Media House International to take over its\u00a0public relations and communications\u00a0after it was\u00a0hit by\u00a0a rogue press release scandal. The MHI team will act to\u00a0repair any damage to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1210,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}