From Disaster to Triumph
Plenty of room at the inn: trying to hide our embarrassment at the PR disaster behind glasses of Maccabee beer. My assistant, Zvi Karmon, is next to me on the left. He later launched his own agency. The two in the center were reps for the breweries who did nothing to encourage their clients to attend the event. Originally from London, Denis Shifrin is on the right. He, too, ran his own agency, Shifrin Na’aman, and was responsible for the second brewery.
As an example of how you can turn a public relations disaster into a triumph, this is the story of the launch of Israel's premium beer in 1964. There were two major brewers in the country, and our advertising agency, Tal & Ariely, handled one of them. The two brewing companies had decided to put their rivalries aside and combine to produce a premium beer to match Amstel or Tuborg, when those brands were still very distinctive. We created a very impressive label for the new upmarket beer, Maccabee, with the design produced by Karst Zwart, our Dutch graphic artist.
We decided to launch the beer at a gala lunch, to be attended by hoteliers, restauranteurs, bar owners, journalists and news film producers (TV didn't exist). We chose a neutral venue, the national catering college in Herzliya, so that no hotelier could be upset or be shown favor over his competitors. The menu was chosen with great care, with the main dish being steak in beer and we catered for 120 guests. Gilt-edge invitations were sent out in good time, with a RSVP request. The cinema news producers had already filmed the breweries and the beer being made. The sales managers of the client didn't like the idea, felt it was a waste of time and did nothing to urge RSVPs. Few replies were received but we were told that RSVP was a novel concept for the country and that all would be perfect on the day.
The day dawned and we had arranged for luxury coaches to take all the press people, who wouldn't miss the chance of a free lunch, to the venue. As expected, they all made the trip. The newsreel people were there, we had created a stage and display of the new label against which the managing directors would address the audience. Everything was done to a very high standard of professionalism. The venue looked fantastic, and the meal was excellent. VIPs and directors attended, the speeches were good, too, and the film producer took all the footage he needed to complete the piece for that week's newsreel — Israelis were inveterate film goers and so we were assured of a massive audience. On film, the event was clearly packed, although some sharp-eyed viewers might have noticed some of the guests appeared more than once, taken from different angles. The newspapers and magazines all covered the spectacular launch as a great success. The only detail that never appeared anywhere was that just four people from the target audience, the hoteliers and restaurateurs, were there.
I was left to negotiate a special deal to settle the hotel's account for the meals that were not needed!
Looking back, public relations sixty years ago was relatively simple — today, this story would probably lead to a full boardroom enquiry, a change of agencies, and the Internet would be alive with comments and photographs of a near-empty venue. That would then be picked up by a news editor who would run a less-than-sympathetic item and the public would be left with a bitter taste for the product.
As for the beer industry today, online research indicates that, from just two breweries back in the 1960s, there are now over 100, many of them considered microbreweries. It is difficult to put a figure on its overall size today. Some claim that the revenue generated by the beer sector in Israel is just under $1 billion, others put a figure of some millions over $1 billion. Notwithstanding all the changes in the beer industry and increased competition, the brand Maccabee is still considered one of the top three brands in the country.
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