29-01-2025
Great Northern cancels $200,000 national park campaign after backlash
Great Northern beer has 'paused' a $200,000 campaign to buy and protect land after the plan upset a vocal portion of its customer base. 4WD enthusiasts had called for a US-style boycott of the company, accusing it of going 'woke' by extending the borders of national parks.
Online media company 4WD TV took to Facebook, calling the move 'disgraceful' and urged its followers to switch to other beer brands. 'Bud Light ring any bells for you?' it added, in an apparent reference to American conservatives boycotting Budweiser beer because it featured a transgender woman in a promotion.
'They have lost me as a customer,' one person wrote in reference to the Great Northern promotion. 'It baffles me that Great Northern Brewing Co. would go against [the] majority of their customers to support inner city activists,' another said.
Great Northern was Australia's second most-consumed beer last year and markets itself with images of people enjoying the great outdoors by fishing and camping.
Although the Great Northern plan was to support non-profit Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife to buy and protect private land, many critics were under the misconception the company wanted to transform state parks into national parks, reducing their capacity to carry out activities like shooting, fishing and off-roading. Others were just annoyed at the concept of increasing the size of national parks.
In a statement, the head of Great Northern marketing, Zac Gelman, explained the money raised would no longer be used to buy land for protection.
'Great Northern's Outdoors for a Cause campaign was yesterday paused following feedback from our passionate drinkers. Our donation to the Foundation for National Parks & Wildlife will now not be used to buy land to add to National Parks. Our donation will instead be used for the preservation of endangered species,' he said.
'Whether it's hiking, fishing, 4-wheel-driving or just relaxing, Great Northern drinkers use and preserve their precious spots in the great outdoors, and we support them.'
While the campaign did find some support on Facebook, with around 1,300 people responding to the post, the boycott left many TikTok users perplexed. 'Why would anyone be anti-national parks?' one person wrote. 'This is the most pointless boycott ever,' another wrote.
They were responding to a video that Marcus Sutherland uploaded to his Oz Camper account which showed him destroying a can of Great Northern with a baseball bat.
Speaking later with Yahoo News, he said he wasn't publicly supporting the boycott and did not align himself with groups that called Great Northern 'woke', and he was merely sharing information about it using a prop. Sutherland said the issue he was most concerned about was rezoning state forests as national parks.
'My favourite thing to do in state forest is take my two boys, my fiancée, and my dog camping and sit around a lit campfire, cook some food. Then jump in the 4WD the next day and go explore,' he said.
He added, 'I am against changing what we already have governed as state forests to national parks, which is a push that has been happening for quite some time.'
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The Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife declined to immediately comment on the situation.
The unaffiliated Victorian National Parks Association, a non-profit group that advocates for nature protection, slammed the boycott as a 'weird campaign' by 'nature-hating groups'. Spokesperson Jordan Crook pointed to a recent poll by Redbridge which found 84 per cent of Victorians say national parks are important, and 80 per cent support the creation of new national parks.
'This again seems like a loud trolling online voice that only reflects the wishes of a very small and entitled group of people,' he said.
'Protecting wildlife and wild places is as Aussie as you can get, national parks protect what's best about the country. Leaving them unprotected leaves them vulnerable to exploitation and inappropriate use."
4WD TV was contacted for comment.
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