For regular Bulletin readers who recall How To Win Friends and Influence People from the beginning of the month, where a South Dakota A-B distributor’s “Contemporary Marketing Coordinator” responded to harsh criticism of one of their products — Rolling Rock — with a textbook example of poor customer relations, has apparently come to a resolution. I received word, not from E-Rokk (the original poster), but from one of his bandmates, Nick Fitt, that the issue had been resolved and he has written up the story of how and why at their Hey Stupid blog. It’s rambling and incoherent at times — Nick’s writing style is reminiscent of someone suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome and an obsessive preoccupation with pornographic imagery — yet pieces of an actual story do peek out from time to time. As far as I can tell, he called the distributor and spoke to Cassie Kimball’s boss, eventually having a conference call with both her boss and that person’s boss, too. Her fate remains vague, though he hints that they told him she “was now hauling skids in the mail room, suffering from many splinters of wood that had been treated with PCP,” whatever that means. In the end, the distributors apparently coughed up some free cases of beer to mollify the situation — Budweiser, not Rolling Rock — and the final paragraphs are spent slobberingly praising “Anheiser Bush” [sic] and their new favorite beer. I’m not sure why, but it all feels a little unsatisfying to me. Considering one of the original complaints was that A-B had sold out by altering E-Rokk’s beloved Rolling Rock, it sure feels like the hey stupid gang do likewise for a few measly cases of free Bud. C’est la vie.
In truth, Nick has many deep rooted issues. A-B did in fact cough up some free cases. The bit about it being our new favorite beer was meant to be viewed as cynical and sarcastic. The thing is we were never out for free beer, we weren’t really out for anything. I wrote a bit about how Rolling Rock has altered its taste and I chose to stop drinking it, then I got a response that I took offense too. Not because it was in contrast to my own opinion, but because the girl that wrote it was supposed to be in marketing and should have known better.
In summary, they gave us a sampling of some of their brews, but the important part was the apology. We still aren’t fans of A-B, but the truth is by the end of the decade I am fairl certain there won’t be a choice.