The ongoing battle between smaller craft breweries and bigger companies, which we saw with the branded drinkware legal case in Florida, is raging on. Small companies are tired of big companies like Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors using their financial clout to eclipse the rest of the smaller companies in the industry.
To combat that, a group of independent craft breweries is banding together in an effort to stop Anheuser-Busch InBev the only way they know how: by buying it. And they need your help, because, you know, such a huge company isn’t going to be cheap. How not cheap, you ask? A whopping $213 billion. That’s “billion” with a “b.”
But, optimistic backers can donate to raise enough money to buy the company, and the organization, Take Craft Back, will reward those who do. When people pledge as low as $10 or as high as $10, they’ll receive promotional items like stickers, can coolers, hats and T-shirts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-a69ey71vo
So far, the campaign has raised a little over $2 million. That’s huge, but when you look at it on a chart like this, it’s barely a drop in the bucket.
In order to hit the goal, every single person in the U.S. would have to donate $653.37. Every person in the world would have to donate $28.78. While people all over the world can appreciate promotional products, and plenty of people like craft beer, that’s a tall order.
“Look at all of this support!” the organization said on its site. “It’s overwhelming! It’s almost too much! Well, not really … we still need plenty more pledges, but it is very, very reassuring! The #IndependentBeer community is alive and well. Alive and $2,000,000 well.”
This is not only a story about giving donors promotional products for their contributions. This is about the beverage industry as a whole, which is a vital part of the promotional products world, too. Since companies from a small brewery to the huge, $213 billion Anheuser-Busch InBevs of the world, use promotional products to get their message out. When the bigger companies push smaller companies out of the market or limit their ability to advertise, as we saw is the case in states that allow companies to give drinkware to bars for free rather than at cost, it affects the promotional products distributors who sell to these clients.
