Banner gives Amstel a headache
● An epic marketing disaster for alcoholic beverage maker Amstel that enraged tree lovers in Joburg saw the Heineken-owned company taking down a banner on Friday and committing to planting trees in the city, which urban legend claims is the largest man-made forest in the world.
The disaster began when a banner emblazoned with Amstel’s branding was erected in Maboneng and three indigenous bushwillow trees were butchered to make it more visible.
Artist James Delaney took to Facebook to air his concerns and generate support for the pressure he was putting on the company to rectify the situation. Among the responses were calls to boycott the brand.
Delaney, who has been instrumental in rejuvenating The Wilds near Killarney, demanded Amstel plant 100 trees around the Maboneng neighbourhood, “which would help beautify downtown, create shade and improve city air”, as a way to make amends.
“That’s an easy solution, it’s not going to cost them too much, it’s good for the city and they can action it really fast,” Delaney said.
Amstel said the cutting of the trees was done without the brand’s knowledge or approval. By Friday afternoon Amstel had instructed that the banner be removed. It could not immediately disclose the company that erected the banner or cut down the trees and did not comment on whether it had terminated its relationship with this company.
“Amstel has committed to greening Johannesburg through a partnership with Food & Trees for Africa, an organisation that focuses on urban greening ,” the company said. It said it would plant 50 trees in Joburg over the next two weeks.
Jo Buitendach, who runs walking tour company Past Experiences, which does walking tours in Maboneng, said she approached Heineken about the trees and the impact of the lost shade for the artists who trade on the streets of Maboneng. “The community was impressed that it was being taken down,” she said.
Amstel is not the only large company to have been burnt by marketing fails. CocaCola SA came under fire for its 2019 Share-aCoke campaign where an offensive word was printed on cans. The campaign aimed to print 700 of SA’s most popular names on its packaging in an attempt to encourage social cohesion. And in 2017, Unilever’s Dove aired a TV commercial showing a black woman turning white as she used their soap. It later dropped the advert.