Dialogue: Business interferes with our heritage at its peril

DB Breweries' mistake over Monteith's lay in its failure to recognise that even Aucklanders have a limited tolerance for phoniness, says JOHN McCRYSTAL*.

Congratulations to the West Coast. This is the first time that I can remember a consumer boycott by New Zealanders, or more accurately the threat of it, changing a corporate decision.

It was a surprising response, although if you had to name one thing guaranteed to get Kiwis hot under the collar, it would probably be beer.

The grandees at DB responsible for the classically unsentimental decision to close the Monteith's brewing operation would have expected a backlash, but I'll bet they were surprised at its depth and vigour.

They were doubtless prepared to cop the wrath of beer drinkers on the chin for the two or three months it took for everyone to get over it, just as adidas weathered the fitful storm of outrage stirred up by their tinkering with that most cherished of icons of our national identity, the All Black jersey.

But the scale of the response must have been a jarring reminder that there is a world outside the balance sheet.

So why did this national outpouring of emotion arise?

Most of it is easy to account for. To that part of the nation south of the Bombay Hills, the closure was perceived as precisely the kind of self-involved decision taken by Aucklanders every day, often to the detriment of heartland New Zealand.

The stark visual contrast between Distraught Blokes in check shirts on the one hand and Defiant Bespectacled Men in dark suits on the other - the kind who most assuredly won't deserve a DB in the final reckoning - plugged directly into the crackling mains of provincial New Zealand's resentment of Rangitoto Yanks.

Here again was the Auckland sales and marketing culture appropriating a piece of Real New Zealand and attempting to foist a wan, commodified version of it upon us instead.

There's no way you would get any New Zealander who was worthy of the name to drink Monteith's once it had begun to be made in Auckland.

But when Kim Hill flippantly observed that most of the letters and faxes she was receiving in support of a boycott were from places other than Auckland, she was promptly inundated with communications to the effect that Aucklanders care, too.

This, above all else, will have made the Dorkland Beancounters sit up and take notice because, after all, Aucklanders account for most of the nation's Monteith's consumption.

Partly, Aucklanders cared out of sympathy for the Coasters. We closed down their coal mines, we've taken away their right to cut down trees. Heaven forbid that we should take away their right to brew beer.

Predictably, however, there was a selfish dimension, too. Aucklanders cared because the further sales and marketing culture takes them from Real New Zealand, the more it matters that Real New Zealand is out there, somewhere, just over the hill from Pokeno.

Whatever might be in a name, it's just not enough to kill the kind of thirst that cost accountancy stokes up. After a hard day juggling ballpark figures, touching bases and maximising synergies, it's refreshing to know that you're sinking the same brew that Coasters are using to wash the coal dust down.

That fact alone is sufficient to make a human resources executive feel like just another breed of roustabout.

Ironically, for all its long history on the Coast - and leaving aside its status as sole living fossil from the days when small, maverick breweries ruled the drinking world - the success of Monteith's is down fairly and squarely to the accuracy of DB's Auckland marketing executives in identifying and exploiting this sentiment.

It's no secret that beer drinking is declining, but nor has it been lost on those Devious Blackguards that the consumption of boutique brews is on the rise, particularly in Auckland.

In the Desperate Brewery's scramble to cater to this trend, the authenticity of the Monteith's brand has already been considerably watered down. Monteith's Summer Ale, for example, has played about as significant a part in the proud traditions of the West Coast as, say, the Vespa. It is brewed in, yes, Auckland.

Moving the Original Monteith's to Auckland must have seemed merely a logical extension. What DB failed to appreciate is that New Zealanders, even Aucklanders, have a limited tolerance for phoniness.

We are prepared to suspend disbelief when we put our money where our myths are, but you can't push it too far. We value our culture and our heritage, and business messes with these at their peril.

Anyone for a Joseph Kuhtze?

* John McCrystal is a Wellington freelance writer.