Leading alcohol companies have joined forces to back a new diversity drive that they say ‘pushes the crucial issues of inclusiveness and diversity without us having to actually do anything much concrete about either.’
‘Project Whitewash has a very clear agenda,’ explained Sham Uplift, head of Knotty Problems at GloboBev Ltd. ‘To listen to groups that have been under-represented in our industry for a shamefully long time.
‘And then ignore them.’
Clear agenda
The participants say that Whitewash has three key elements to its strategy: PR, Marketing and Social Media, all of which, GloboBev said were ‘crucial’ to the campaign’s success.
‘Diversity is absolutely at the heart of what this is all about,’ said a spokesdrone. ‘So rest assured we will be reaching out to a huge range of media platforms so that everyone knows what we’re doing.
‘Which isn’t very much.’
Fixing the broke
MegaBooze – another subscriber to the programme – said they were ‘looking forward to Whitewash making a real difference and helping to turn around things that have been broken for too long.
‘Such as our terrible public profile.’
‘We’re all in this together,’ said MegaBooze’s Kindred Porcupine Jr. ‘And by ‘all’ I mean middle aged white men. The rest of you are somewhere else. I’m not sure where. But not in the boardroom that’s for certain.’
Sizable sums
Financial details of the diversity drive were not made available to the press. However, industry insiders have confirmed to Fake Booze that the sums involved will be ‘sizable – for a charity, at least.
‘Not so much by the standards of huge global corporations.’
The participants have said they are committed to investing ‘whatever we find down the back of the sofa whenever we can be arsed.’
The equality paradox
Asked to comment on why there are no female CEOs in spirits, GloboBev’s uplift said that Whitewash already had a strong strategy to address the equality issue.
‘Women think they are equal to men but are not being treated that way,’ he told Fake Booze.
‘But as soon as we give up any pretence at parity, that contradiction goes away.’
He went on to add that ‘Several of my ex-wives are women.’
Exciting times
‘It’s wonderful finally to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem,’ said the participants in a joint press release.
‘This is all about helping out a very specific group of people.
‘Namely us.’
