Start counting:
...inquiries by the Labour MP Tom Watson have revealed attempts by Portland Communications, which is run by Tony Blair's former adviser Tim Allan, to improve the brand's online reputation on behalf of its client, the brewer AB InBev. Under the user name Portlander10 it removed reference to Stella Artois from the Wikipedia page entitled "Wife beater" and replaced it with a generic reference to lager or beer. Portland also tried to remove the reference to wife beater on the Wikipedia page for Stella Artois. But other users spotted the edit and reversed it.
Both the brand and the nickname, I suppose. But editing Wikipedia to boost your brand... and worse the idea of paying a consultant to edit Wikipedia for you. Then there is paying a consultant to edit Wikipedia to boost your brand and your consultant editing it from the consultancy's own IP address as well. Perhaps, too, is the setting up of a brand victim strategy. We should feel badly for the maker due to the slurs being foisted upon their macro gak.
Or was it just to have people like me mention the event. Like me. Well played, Portlander10. But it's still a face full of bland.






Comments
Chris Barrett - January 4, 2012 9:58 PM
People that aren't Portlander10 have been commenting on (if not reverting) the etymology of the wife beater comment since 2006. My immediate thought was of "Streetcar" not with drunken misbehaviour, but with that said, you are right on the money about it's blandness.