{"id":19633,"date":"2018-02-12T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T20:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=19633"},"modified":"2018-02-12T12:11:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T20:11:57","slug":"stone-brewing-files-lawsuit-against-millercoors-over-keystone-branding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2018\/02\/12\/stone-brewing-files-lawsuit-against-millercoors-over-keystone-branding\/","title":{"rendered":"Stone Brewing files lawsuit against MillerCoors over Keystone branding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week, Stone Brewing <\/strong><\/a>co-founder Greg Koch <\/strong>began posting a series of cryptic Tweets as a lead-up to a \u201cscrap\u201d that would go down at noon today. Having worked for Stone for numerous years and coordinated on various marketing campaigns with Koch, this had all the earmarks of such an initiative. They are interwoven into the DNA of the 22-year-old, Escondido brewing company, which rose to prominence in the late-nineties and early-thousands thanks as much to its extremely hoppy beers (especially for the marketplace at the time) as Koch\u2019s adventurous marketing, most notably the taunting verbiage on the back of bottles of Arrogant Bastard Ale. But a video and press release that went out earlier today attest that this melee\u2014a lawsuit filed against MillerCoors<\/strong> over the branding of its Keystone<\/strong> line of beers\u2014is quite serious.<\/p>\n

The suit alleges that multi-national “Big Beer” conglomerate MillerCoors is purposely trying to create confusion in the marketplace with a recent rebranding of the products in Keystone\u2019s portfolio. A prime example are 12-ounce cans, which break the word \u201cKeystone\u201d into two words on separate lines that read \u201cKey\u201d and \u201cStone\u201d (which appear in all capital letters). When rotated a certain way, all that is visible is the word Stone. Furthermore, on 30-pack cases, the word \u201cKeystone\u201d appears, but it is depicted so that only the word \u201cStone\u201d is shown on a can (which is rotated in the manner noted above) and the \u201cKey\u201d merely precedes it. From there, other terms like \u201cLight\u201d are tacked on, again, independent of the can.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we doing this for publicity\u2026no. We figured you ought to know the facts,\u201d says Koch in his video message to consumers (which can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here<\/strong><\/a>). \u201cThe point is, there\u2019s an intentional obfuscation that they are attempting to run, confusing people with our brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeystone\u2019s rebranding is no accident,\u201d adds Stone CEO Dominic Engels<\/strong>. \u201cMillerCoors tried to register our name years ago and was rejected.\u201d He also notes that Keystone\u2019s social-media posts have \u201calmost universally dropped the ‘Key.’\u201d<\/p>\n

As an observer employed in a marketing capacity within the brewing industry, I will say that the first time I saw Keystone\u2019s rebrand, I wondered how it would be received by my previous employer. It struck me the same way as it did Koch, as an attempt to piggyback off a legitimate craft brand, albeit through one of the most blatant and sophomoric attempts at subterfuge I\u2019ve seen by a multi-billion-dollar corporation.<\/p>\n

In the video, Koch switches from fact- and opinion-driven summation of the lawsuit filing to his trademark, dryly-comedic bashing of Big Beer. He insults the \u201cflavorless and watery\u201d nature of Keystone products and performs multiple spit takes with the beer. While a court of public opinion will not provide judgment on this case (in which Stone is being represented by BraunHagey & Borden LLP<\/strong>), in this day and age, there is no way that craft-beer consumers and the population at large won\u2019t make up their own minds about the merits of the suit. It would seem Koch\u2019s delivery leaves the door open for doubters who would say that, while there is substantial cause for taking MillerCoors to court, Stone is attempting to benefit from as much publicity as possible in the process.<\/p>\n

Stone has set up a social-media hashtag\u2014#TrueStonevsKeystone<\/strong>\u2014for people to follow along, primarily with Koch. Of course, this case may never make it to court. As Koch says when addressing MillerCoors in his video: \u201cYou can end all of this right here and now by one simple move that reinforces your brand that you\u2019ve built. Put the \u2018Key\u2019 back in \u2018Keystone.\u2019 Stop using Stone as a stand-alone word. It\u2019s ours.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch began posting a series of cryptic Tweets as a lead-up to a \u201cscrap\u201d that would go down at noon today. Having worked for Stone for numerous years and coordinated on various marketing campaigns with Koch, this had all the earmarks of such an initiative. They are interwoven into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":19638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,1],"tags":[1353,376,1842,442,4722,391,3113,1259,114,2483,4723,4724,2379,1962,1439,3139,1473,1474,4725,4721,2104,1637],"class_list":{"0":"post-19633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-beer-news","8":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","9":"tag-sdbeer","10":"tag-beer","11":"tag-big-beer","12":"tag-brandon-hernandez","13":"tag-braunhagey-borden","14":"tag-craftbeer","15":"tag-dominic-engels","16":"tag-escondido","17":"tag-greg-koch","18":"tag-indiebeer","19":"tag-keystone","20":"tag-keystone-light","21":"tag-macrobeer","22":"tag-millercoors","23":"tag-san-diego","24":"tag-social-media","25":"tag-stone-brewery","26":"tag-stone-brewing","27":"tag-stonegreg","28":"tag-truestonevskeystone","29":"tag-twitter","30":"tag-west-coaster","31":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/GK_ProjectGargoyle.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-56F","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}