Monster Energy Drink, Rock Art Brewery and the power of Social Media

By John, 19 October, 2009, No Comment

Let’s have another look at social media and the impact it can have on YOUR business. Right now the internet is all aTwitter about Monster Energy. Rock Art Brewery is a small local brewery in Vermont that produces a beer called Vermonster. The business was started by Matt Nadeau in his basement 12 years ago and now has 9 employees and operates out of a nice clean brewery facility. Unfortunately for them, the powers at Hansen Beverage Co., the manufacturers of Monster Energy, have decided that peope are to stupid to know the difference between an energy drink and beer. They have demanded that the brewery stop producing Vermonster beer. That’s when things got interesting.

On September 14, Matt received a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter from Hansen. In the month that has followed, he’s spoken to 5 different trademark lawyers in different states and they all told him, there is no trademark infringement and that it’s clearly a nuisance lawsuit. They also told him that should he fight it, he would lose because Hansen is a Billion dollar a year company and eventually he wouldn’t be able to fund the fight anymore. At that point, they would win by default.

That’s when Rock Art Brewery took off the gloves. He started putting the word out to the world letting them know what was going on. The story was picked up by New England Cable News, several TV stations in New England and finally by the Associated Press. Once AP picked up the story it was published in over 270 newspapers around the country. Something was missing from the story though. It was just another Big Business vs Small Business story.

Then a few days ago, social media kicked in and the folks at Monster Energy are starting to take it on the chin. It started with Matt posting a video on YouTube called Matt and “The Monster”- Rock Art Brewery vs. Monster Energy Drink (included below). Next the blogosphere joined in. While many went after Monster Energy, others realized that the it was the lawyers at Hansen Beverage who were driving the plan to stomp out Vermonster. While most bloggers included the YouTube video from Matt (see below), others, like videobloggger Allyn Hane at BloggerIllustrated.net (NOT Safe for Work) , did their own video to show their distaste for what was going on.

So what’s been the outcome at this point? Google “Hansen Beverage” and in addition to the normal things you would expect to find on the front page for a corporation i.e. corporate website, wikipedia article, investor relations you’ll find:

(BLOG) Boycott Monster Energy Drink/Hansen Beverage Company
(BLOG) Fighting Against Hansen Beverage Co.
(NEWS) Trademark Dispute: Monster trying to stomp out craft beer
(NEWS) Clash of the Monsters
(NEWS) Monster maker to VT Brewer: No ‘Vermonster” Beer

Wander over to the Google Blog Search and it gets even worse. 18 of the first 20 links (first two pages) are all anti Hansen Beverage and Monster Energy.

What can you learn from this? First off, if you are in business, NEVER think to yourself that one disgruntled customer can’t do that much damage to you. Two, use some common sense. Finally, learn how to use social media, or as it’s beginning to be called “New Media”, to get your message out.

Here’s the video that Matt Nadeau put up on YouTube followed by links to some of the blogs that have written about this power play by one big business.