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Beers and bibles: How Coopers created their own PR disaster

The danger with a company making a political statement is that customers tend to take it seriously.

Let's make something clear from the get go: individuals and companies have every right to express their opinions, political and otherwise, in whatever form they choose.

On a related point: hoo boy, it's been a bad couple of days for venerable South Australian brewer Coopers.

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Pubs boycott Coopers 'Bible' beer

Some hotels have stopped serving Coopers beer after they produced 10,000 commemorative light beers to celebrate 200 years of the Australian Bible Society.

The story goes like this: the brewery is owned by the Coopers family, who have been long time donors to the Bible Society along with other religious and conservative groups (including being one of the largest donors to the SA Liberal Party). 

And thus they celebrated their relationship with the Bible Society by putting out a commemorative beer celebrating 200 years of the Society. And the way the Bible Society put it, it was an actual partnership.

According to their "Keeping It Light" page, "Bible Society Australia has teamed up with Coopers Premium Light to ask Australians to try "Keeping it Light" - a creative campaign to reach even more Australians with God's word". 

Accompanying this little statement was a video of a conversation between MPs Tim Wilson and Andrew Hastie in which they outlined their positions on marriage equality (Wilson is pro, Hastie is anti), and then agreed that other people are doing the marriage equality debate wrong and that Q&A; is terrible, while drinking Coopers Light in Parliament House because presumably this is good use of their publicly supported time. 

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And then all hell broke loose. Sorry, Hell. 

There was a massive social media backlash about Coopers' involvement in sponsoring a religious organisation to make an explicitly political point, including slews of one star reviews on Coopers' Facebook page amid promises from lifelong Coopers drinkers that this was the final time they'd let a Pale Ale pass their lips. The Old Bar in Melbourne announced they'd stop stocking the beer. And Coopers realised very quickly that they'd made a terrible mistake.

That Coopers are frantically backpedalling can be seen in the two different press releases regarding the deal. 

As the first rumblings of disquiet began Coopers issued a statement in which they didn't indicate that there was any problem with the video, much less give any suggestion that they weren't involved with sponsoring it.

"With regards to the 'Keeping It Light' video from the Bible Society featuring Andrew Hastie and Tim Wilson, this is a light hearted but balanced debate about an important topic within Australia. As a mature community it's a debate we need to have but in a good spirited and good natured way," it read, before pointing out that their Bible Society can is but one of a number "of different celebratory cans to recognise the historical achievements of a vast array of different organisations." 

That last bit is a bit misleading, incidentally: the "vast array" of organisations would appear to be about half a dozen, almost all of which are sports-related: Mount Panorama, the Bathurst 1000, the Australian Open, the Grand Prix, and the Big Day Out. As arrays go, it's not exactly vast - and certainly doesn't indicate that the 200th anniversary of the Bible Society is the sort of thing they regularly commemorate.

Needless to say, this clarification didn't clarify things and was therefore followed on Monday by another press release which was rather less ambiguous: they just made the cans and everything else is all the Bible Society's fault. 

"We want you to know that Coopers did not give permission for our Premium Light beer to feature in, or ‘sponsor’ the Bible Society’s ‘Keeping it Light’ video featuring Andrew Hastie and Tim Wilson," the new statement makes clear.

"We respect the beliefs of our community and do not wish to try and change them. Our family brewery is made up of individuals from a number of different backgrounds, all of whom hold differing views on politics and religion, which we think is reflective of the wider community. We would like all Coopers fans to know that we support and embrace all of our beer drinking community." 

Let's make one thing clear, though: the video wasn't part of a respectful debate. It was a publicity stunt for the Bible Society and an ad for Coopers. 

That Tim Wilson, conservative Liberal Party backbencher for Goldstein, can find common ground with Andrew Hastie, conservative Liberal backbencher for Canning, isn't exactly a heartwarming triumph of genteel good manners, clear argument and basic respect (not least because Hastie's argument, that marriage somehow pre-dates the existence of politics, is straight-up incorrect). It's two ambitious politicians from the political party that Coopers supports taking advantage of some free airtime.

And since an estimated 75 per cent of Australians support marriage equality, there's zero reason to hold off on legislating it beyond that the current government have made it a point of pride not to - which, again, makes a "debate" between two members of said government seem a tad disingenuous.  

For Coopers it's especially problematic because recent history suggests that beer boycotts work – as Carlton United Breweries discovered when they were forced to back down over the sacking of 55 workers who were then forced to reapply for their jobs at reduced pay and conditions. 

And it should be made clear that Coopers have a rich history of donating millions of dollars to various non-profits, which includes a lot of medical research groups (as well as church-based charities). Their money has done a lot of good, and other organisations could stand to follow their example. 

However, if Coopers chose to sponsor a political act by a religious organisation then they force their customers to make a choice. They can tacitly support their position by continuing to drink their product, or they can take Coopers at their word, respect their clear position on an issue that affects LGBTIQ Australians, and choose to drink something else from here on in.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, even for breweries.

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