The historic Jamaican beer brand announced at the end of the week that it was ceasing to sponsor live events in Jamaica. The reason given: in its statement the brewer denounces “a worrying and negative trend of glorification of violence” in music and its “damaging implications for the industry and the country as a whole”.
This abrupt news concerns first and foremost two major festivals on the island, Reggae Sumfest (which for six years had been renamed Red Stripe Reggae Sumfest) and Guinness Sting (backed by the beer of the same name, belonging to the same group). It should be remembered that behind this typical beer, born in 1928, lies the giant Diageo, the world number one in the sector. According to our Jamaican colleagues, the brand’s contribution to the two festivals amounts to several thousand US dollars.
Red Stripe, which nonetheless prides itself on having accompanied Jamaica’s modern history and its music, would thus be throwing in the towel, having failed to define a clear position with the other players within the “Coalition of corporate sponsors”, meant to regulate relations between the music industry and businesses. It seems rather, as Robert Russell, the Sumfest promoter, suggests, that this decision has more to do with the policy of the parent company, keen to protect its image, than with the local managers alone (the beer will of course continue to be sold at any event).
Let us still recall that from 1974, the year Michael Manley announced his socialist programme, young PNP activists appropriated the colours of Red Stripe (their JLP opponents preferring the green Heineken bottle), without the brand taking offence.
Source: www.outaroad.com