BrewDog’s new owner, Tilray, has unveiled its comeback plan for the craft beer company after its CEO revealed the brand was ‘held hostage’ by suppliers after its collapse earlier this year.

The new multi-million-pound brand platform, ‘Choose Craft’, is set to go live on 5 October, rolling out across the UK via out-of-home and digital.

Hailed as one of BrewDog’s “biggest campaigns yet”, newly appointed chief marketing officer John Beasley said the business needed to “stand for more than just drink” as it looks to rebuild the brand.

“What we’re going to share with you today is more than a campaign,” Beasley said. “It is not just the next ad campaign. For us, it is a brand platform.”

“We’ve gone back to our roots, gone back to what we’re all about. It’s the beer and the people who love it, and it’s a celebration of them. We love craft. It’s where we started, it’s in our DNA.”

The new campaign comes as Tilray chief executive Irwin Simon admitted sales at the independent brewer fell as much as 20 per cent following its takeover by US drinks group in March.

Speaking at a media event at BrewDog Waterloo on Tuesday, Simon blamed “negative news” surrounding the company’s financial problems for the fall in sales, saying BrewDog’s numbers had been “horrible” during the transition.

“Our numbers were horrible because of the lead-up, the negative news out there, the thinking that BrewDog was going out of business.”

Tilray bought BrewDog for £33m in March after the Scottish brewer entered administration with more than £500m of debt. The deal included the BrewDog brand and intellectual property, its Aberdeen brewery, and 11 UK pubs, while 38 other bars were closed.

The collapse left hundreds of suppliers and creditors owed money and 440 staff made redundant. Around 200,000 crowdfunding investors were left with shares worth no value, according to administrators while closed BrewDog pubs faced additional costs after “squatters” allegedly gained access to some sites.

Earlier this week the business unveiled a slew of new appointments, including John Beasley as its new chief marketing officer, Gemma Hampton-Stone as managing director of bars and hospitality, Ridesh Sharma as category director and Faisal Khan as commercial Director for beverages and rest of the world (ROW).

Left in a state of disarray

Simon said sales remained below the same period last year but had shown a “steady” improvement since Tilray took over, despite inheriting a business with major operational problems.

“There was no hops, no barley, very few cans. Every brew pub was closed because there was no food. There was literally no employees to get paid,” he said.

“You had vendors out there that didn’t get paid. They then become what we call hostage because they’re saying, ‘Hey, we’re not shipping new cans, and we don’t get paid the old bills, even though they’re not ours.'”

“We had to go out and make arrangements to start getting supplies. We had to make arrangements to get the breweries going. We had to make arrangements to open up the brew pubs,” the CEO said, confirming all suppliers are now back working with the brewer.

Speaking to Retail Gazette, Simon said the new team has since gone through the Aberdeen brewery “with a fine tooth comb”, already injecting over $50m into the business as it invests in its neglected manufacturing facilities and pubs.

“We’re looking at pasteurization of certain products, we’re looking at line machines, more efficient canning machines, [fixing] piping where there could have been small pinholes, putting standard operating procedures in place in regards to cleanliness.”

“It was around-the-clock work that took to get this engine back going again,” Simon said. “And let me tell you, it was a big engine, a lot of work.”

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