A Pint for a Vote: U.K. Beer Brand Entices Voters to the Polls Today With Promise of Free Beer

Just Take a Selfie to Prove It

Published On
Jun 07, 2017

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Could this finally be a solution to voter apathy? U.K. craft beer Brewdog is promising to hand out free beer to anyone who votes in the U.K.'s General Election today.

The Scottish company is encouraging people to "Vote Punk" and claim a free pint of Punk IPA in any of Brewdog's 29 U.K. bars if they show staff a selfie outside a polling station. People can also redeem the offer on Friday, the day after the election, if they either want to celebrate or drown their sorrows, and if they voted by post they can show a confirmation email. The campaign was created by Brewdog's in-house team with original concept developed with Studio of Art & Commerce.

James Watt, co-founder of BrewDog, commented in a statement: "The political scene could do with more candour and honesty and recent political polls have been spectacularly off target, so we're running the first ever poll with added craft beer. We believe everyone is more truthful and candid with a beer in their hand and we're confident the results taken from outside our bars across the country will provide a more accurate picture of voting intention than any of the usual boring polls."

Brewdog -- which launched in Scotland in 2007 and is expanding into the U.S. with the launch of a brewery in Ohio this year -- is just the latest in a number of brands and marketers attempting to combat voter apathy, in elections on both sides of the Atlantic. Last year in the Presidental election, Doritos created flavorless, crunchless chips to highlight the importance of voter registration. And last week in the U.K., agency Forever Beta created a viral video featuring the "Can't Be Arsed Party" to highlight voter apathy.