The Boston Beer Company, creator of Samuel Adams beer, has been under fire on its Facebook over the past couple of weeks due to an advertisement omitting a portion of the Declaration of Independence referenced.
They commercial overlooks a reference to God in its commercial stating, “All men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence states: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In a statement, the Boston Beer Company explained, “We adhere to an advertising code, established by the Beer Institute — a beer industry trade organization — that states, ‘Beer advertising and marketing materials should not include religion or religious themes.’ We agree with that, and we follow these guidelines and approach our marketing with the utmost responsibility.”
In a statement by Christopher Thorne, the Beer Institute’s vice president of communications, the organization expressed the following: “While our guidelines for brewers and beer importers have evolved over time to meet the country’s evolving social, commercial and technological norms, the premise of these guidelines has remained unchanged — to ensure that brewers and beer importers market and advertise their products responsibly and to adults of legal drinking age.”
“The Beer Institute’s Advertising and Marketing Code does say that beer advertising and marketing materials should not employ religion or religious themes,” the Institute’s statement continued. “It also says that brewers should use the perspective of the reasonable adult consumer of legal drinking age in advertising and marketing their products. Ultimately, what determines adherence to the Advertising and Marketing Code is whether someone is using religion or religious themes to promote their beer in a way that would offend a reasonable adult consumer of legal drinking age.”
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