The rise and fall of BrewDog ‘captain’ James Watt
The Telegraph
Watt had quit his job as a trainee solicitor after just two weeks and become a fisherman like his father, before turning to beer – and to splashy publicity stunts. With the birth of BrewDog, he quickly became “the darling of branding”, says PR expert Mark Borkowski. “He turbo-charged the company’s success. The speed of its rise was incredible.”
As the company grew, it also proved difficult for BrewDog to maintain its image as a rebellious upstart. In 2017, private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners invested £213 million in the firm in exchange for a 23 per cent stake, valuing the company at almost £1 billion, after which it embarked on a rapid global expansion. It’s a problem that “challenger brands” face, observes Borkowski, as they try to “re-create the energy of disruption”.
Despite stepping down as CEO last year, Watt has very much remained in the public eye ever since. And he has continued to court controversy. In January, he sparked widespread anger after citing academic research which suggested Britain is a workshy nation and posting on Instagram “I don’t believe in work-life balance”. Indeed, Borkowski warns he may have lost touch with how he is perceived by much of the public. “He’s proud of being a ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps’ guy, but that can tip over into arrogance.”
Borkowski thinks Watt is now “dangerously overexposed”. In a supposedly jokey video published by the couple this July, Watt said Toffolo had leapt into a higher tax bracket by saying “I do”. Toffolo, meanwhile, said he was “someone I’ve rebranded”, and both accused the other of constantly Googling themselves. The clip quickly became an object of ridicule. One commenter said: “I fear nobody likes you both as much as you do.”