Lead Balloon Ep. 65 - Delicious Redemption: Getting Fired for an Infamous PBR Tweet Made Corey Smale the CCO at Garage Beer

PBR Fired Him. Now He's Ad Age's Marketer of the Year.

It was four years ago that the Twitter account for legendary beer brand Pabst Blue Ribbon tweeted out:

"Not drinking this January? Try eating ass!"

And we're FINALLY talking to the guy who did it.

Because Corey Smale—who was promptly fired for the Tweet and owned it publicly—isn't just PBR's ex-social media manager.

Redemption is delicious for Corey Smale.

He's now been named Ad Age's "Marketer of the Year" for his current work as Chief Creative Officer at Garage Beer, one of the fastest-growing beer brands in the world.

Look, we already covered the PBR "eating ass" tweet extensively in ⁠episode 30 of this podcast⁠.

And Dusty arrived at the conclusion that it might have been a dumb thing to tweet, but it was consistent with the brand voice that management and fans had embraced. Firing Corey was just an act of scapegoating.

Garage Beer CCO Corey Smale

But in this episode, we'll chart the four-year redemption ordeal that took Corey Smale from social media fall guy… to the creative force behind a growing beverage brand that counts football and podcast sensations Jason and Travis Kelce among its co-owners.

Corey will tell us about the very deliberate decision-making that rebuilt his reputation, the uncertainty that comes from missing on a big swing, and the source of the work ethic that has propelled him to the top of the marketing heap.

Plus, we'll talk about the creative process behind Garage Beer's deliciously deranged marketing and social media presence, including its "⁠Brewmite⁠" martial arts movie, its Predator parody "⁠Thermal Buzz⁠," and a water bed that dispenses beer to one lucky brand fan.

Finally, Corey will break a bit of Garage Beer merchandising news—the upcoming launch of its "Beer Hand," a reimagined Nintendo Power Glove designed to aid the wearer in making life decisions and pounding brewskies.

Transcript:

Dusty Weis

So just a heads up while we normally bleep out any bad words on Lead Balloon, this one's going to be a little bit spicier than usual. If you've got little kids around or squeamish coworkers, now would be a good time to pop in the earbuds or pause it to come back later.

Because we have an update to one of the more interesting and definitely the most vulgar story that we've ever covered on this show.

It was four years ago that the world of social media marketing was rocked to its core.

And yeah, social media marketing is a world of hyperbole, and it is almost always being rocked to its core by something crazy that somebody or other did.

But this one was an all-timer, making major media headlines and even featuring in Late Show host Stephen Colbert's opening monologue.

Stephen Colbert

A lot of people are using the New Year's as an opportunity to take a break from alcohol, aka dry January. Over on Twitter, one adult beverage company had a bit of advice. Pabst Blue Ribbon posted this actual tweet: “Not drinking this January? Try eating ass.”

Dusty Weis

The Pabst marketing employee responsible for the tweet, Corey Smale, was promptly fired after the shitstorm the ass-eating tweet kicked up.

But as we discussed when we covered it on episode 30 of this podcast...

Archive Clip

“I would posit that it is an act of cowardice to fire the guy who's got his fingers on the tweeter...”

Dusty Weis

He had been running the brand's social media for two years at that point, and the try eating ass tweet was actually pretty on brand with the edgy, slightly deranged, but 100% authentic brand voice that he had developed and the cult following that was celebrating it.

At the time, we invited Corey to join us on the show. But, with a cratered career to rebuild, he declined... very tactfully, I would add. I think that the way that he handled himself in the wake of this whole thing was actually pretty savvy.

Because here we are four years later, and Corey Smale is now the chief creative officer at Garage Beer, the quickly growing brand owned in part by internet darlings Jason and Travis Kelce.

And he's now been named Ad Age's Marketer of the Year.

Corey Smale

And I was okay to be fired. You know, I look back at it... It’s the best thing that's ever happened to my career. I mean, I got a new house. I got a new truck. Life is good. I don't know, what do you want me to say?

Dusty Weis

In this episode, the four-year redemption ordeal that took Corey Smale from social media scapegoat to creative force behind one of the fastest growing beverage brands in the world.

I'm Dusty Weis. From Podcamp Media, this is Lead Balloon, a podcast about epic tales from the worlds of PR, marketing and branding, told by the well-meaning communications professionals who lived them.

Dusty Weis

Thank you for tuning in. We're joined today by Corey Smale, chief creative officer of Garage Beer and Ad Age's Marketer of the Year. Corey. Thanks for making time, man.

Corey Smale

Dusty. It is my pleasure to join you. This is a long time coming.

Dusty Weis

Four years I have been waiting for this interview dude.

Corey Smale

Here I am. I am happy to be here.

Dusty Weis

I want to start by saying that this is going to be a mostly forward-looking interview, right? You're doing incredible work at Garage Beer. The work that you have done has helped make it one of the fastest growing beverage brands in the world.

But every great comeback story starts with a moment of darkness and hopelessness. At least that's what I learned in scriptwriting class back in the day.

You had described your job at Pabst Blue Ribbon as a dream job. At the time, you were doing work that you described as wild and free. Put me back in your head on the day that you found out that you were going to be losing that job at PBR. What were you feeling?

Corey Smale

Honestly, just like an uncertainty. I mean, I just didn't really know. You know, I was, like, a little torn on things because I just kind of, like, did that early one morning when I was in bed, I did the tweet, you know, and then did just sort of like, caught fire. And I just kind of stuck with it.

And then it was told to me that, like, this is a problem. And I was like, oh, no.

And so I was just I wasn't sure. I mean, I was okay to be fired. You know, I look like at now, like three years before that, I like, I had a Chinese restaurant and it went bankrupt. And like, I owed $700,000 to a bank.

Dusty Weis

So it's like, so it's not so bad compared to that. It's not so bad.

Corey Smale

Kind of. Yeah. I mean, not to say it's like, oh we're good. You know, it wasn't great, but also like everything is relative, you know? And I knew that I wasn't being mean. I was being crazy. But crazy is subjective. So, just a little bit of confusion, I guess. That's a long ass answer, but I would say just everything felt sort of up in the air, like all the work we had done on the ground level all the sudden it was just like...

And it was like, oh, who knows what's going to happen in this space, you know?

Dusty Weis

I thought that you took a really, really good approach to rebuilding yourself from that point.

In spite of my best efforts, I've never been fired... Outside of, like, a job at a Pizza Hut that I got fired from when I was, like, 16 years old and then, like, batted my big blue eyes and talked my way back into that job.

I can't imagine I would handle it anywhere near as well as you handled it. You've said that certainly that previous moment from your career had prepared you to land on your feet a little bit. But is that kind of resilience something that is inherent to you, or is that something that you learn from getting kicked in the face over and over again?

Corey Smale

I knew that it was big, and I knew that the moves that I would make immediately needed to be smart. And I needed to be gracious. You know, I had some opportunities to do crazier things for quick money that would be more disparaging to, like, Pabst. But I didn't want to do that because, like, my best friends still worked there.

And the owner of Pabst, Eugene Kashper, was like, he was a good dude to me. And he took care of me, you know, man to man after I got fired. And that just, that meant a lot. So I was just very like, okay, this didn't work, but there's really no bad blood.

The CEO, I mean, whatever... he don’t even work there anymore, so. But he had to do what he had to do. So I understand the circumstances were just awkward. But like I said, I understood that on a human to human level, I understood that I had done a lot of work over the last 2 or 3 years with like some really good friends.

We had done some really remarkable things and I didn't want to just, like, blow it all up.

Dusty Weis

I'm not an actuary. Neither of us is interested in relitigating and portioning out blame for what happened at PBR. I mean, we did like a 45 minute episode about this four years ago in episode 30 of the podcast and we my professional opinion, we landed on the assessment that, yeah, you probably wish you could have that one back, but also it wasn't fair for PBR to hang you out to dry like they did when they knew full well what your Twitter strategy was.

But yeah, we're not going there right now. That's my opinion. Yet you went public and accepted 100% of the blame. You never spoke poorly of PBR in the four years since then, and I think that you charted an admirable course between standing behind the integrity of your own work, which was wild, which was creative, which was free, which was effective for the brand, but still being accountable for the fallout from what happened.

What do you think other people can learn from the way that you handled yourself in a hard situation there?

Corey Smale

I think you really just have to understand the guardrails in what you're working with. And I think that there weren't any at Pabst. And that's why things were awesome. But then that's also why it all fell apart. Like the same behavior of calling the customers rats is pretty much on par with suggesting eating ass. You know, I'm like, that's not...

You know? Right? Honestly I would say calling someone a rat, is worse, in my opinion.

Dusty Weis

It's in the same lane, man.

Corey Smale

But so we were just on this road and there weren't boundaries. And I want to say one thing. The other night I was out with Andy Sauer. He's the CEO of Garage Beer. And we're just... we’ve become so close. And he was like, “Corey, you're driving on Rainbow Road. You know, and if you think about it, on N64. There's still guardrails on Rainbow Road.” You know.

And I think that we just didn't have any rails, you know. And I think that that's like, my suggestion would be if your job is to do that, to be controversial, to like, I think you really do understand, like where the line is, you know, and then it's like, well, how can you say that? How can you give an example of a specific tweet?

Like, that's hard to say, but I think just having a greater discussion as to like how far we're willing to push it is probably imperative. But I would almost... I would almost suggest to not have it.

Like if we had had that conversation, this would have never happened. Maybe, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really sure.

Dusty Weis

I know a few other social media managers who have achieved online fame from something that they tweeted under a brand name, Amy Brown. We had her as a guest on the podcast. She's from Wendy's. Nathan Allebach, who was the Steak-umms Twitter guy.

I think that folks like them and a lot of other folks in their shoes have kind of struggled to decouple their reputation from like that one thing that they did. And you have not, that is in spite of the fact that people tweeted, “Bring back the ass guy” at PBR for like more than a year after you were fired.

Corey Smale

So, I mean, I yeah, I don't come from social media, like I used to have a Chinese restaurant and donut store. Like I'm going to just keep going, you know?

And like, I don't want to be that guy, you know what I mean? Like, I quickly took a job at Party Land just to be a writer on Liquid Death because I was like, oh, that's so different. Like, I won't have to do no tweets, I'm just going to work for some really smart people and some really creative ideas and just kind of figure it out from there.

So I almost... Like I removed myself immediately. No one else got me to do their social media, you know what I mean? That was key.

Dusty Weis

It seems like you got to the point where you are by making really deliberate choices about the kind of work that you were going to accept. Even down to, you know, you declined an interview on this show four years ago because you were interested in moving forward. And I just think that that is so smart and so forward thinking.

Corey Smale

I appreciate it.

Dusty Weis

I think people get lost in the fame of the moment and aren't seeing one year down the line, four years down the line, when you're sort of riding that wave of viral success.

Corey Smale

Yeah, I mean, there was definitely a lot of opportunities, but I was quickly just sort of whittled it down to who I thought was real, you know, and I worked on this marshmallow company, this kid, Mike Tierney, he started it. It’s called Stuffed Puffs. He's a genius. He also has a company called Mike. He's like, he's brilliant. And he reached out.

I was like, I'll give a chance to this guy because I can see he's like, it's on the entrepreneurial side, you know? So I worked with him just for a few months and then Party Land...

Dusty Weis

Party Land is an agency that you had worked with at PBR, right?

Corey Smale

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I was like, that was obvious to me. I was like, oh, this will be a great space to just chill out. And then in the background, I was having a conversation with Andy Sauer from Garage Beer and it was just a a beer brand by a brewery in Covington, Kentucky called Braxton.

And he was like, I'm going to buy this brand and extract it. And like, I was like that sounds cool, man. He was all that. I was like, just let me know, when are we ready? You know?

Dusty Weis

And so why did he reach out to you? Was it was it the PBR tweet? Is that how you landed on his radar.

Corey Smale

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. And I mean, they said to me, whatever you were doing for them, I want you to do it for me.

Dusty Weis

That's fantastic. And inasmuch as you were, like, lost in the woods for a little while, would you say that at the end of the day, getting fired from PBR was like a positive step for your career?

Corey Smale

It's the best thing that's ever happened to my career.

Dusty Weis

Elaborate on that.

Corey Smale

I mean, I got a new house, I got a new truck, I got equity in Garage Beer. Life's good, baby. I don't know. What do you want me to say? I mean, I was still working. I'm working harder than ever, but, like...

I'm starting to get a little older and a little more, retrospective. Look like there's some luck in this shit, you know what I mean? Like, I can say, “Aw, I grinded my way through it.” I did, you know, there's some of that. Some of it was just good timing, though, and some of it was it just intuition.

So I think like I've been thinking about lately, it's like 80%, is just “Grind it out, man.” You know, just be a dawg, you know.

And then 10% I think is a little bit of luck. You know you need that you know, and 10 percent is like, you're ready. And your life, it's ready. It's time you know. So shit just kind of worked out like that. I can't just say I did this all on my own, you know?

Right. There's something bigger than that. You know.

Dusty Weis

A little bit more background about Garage Beer. It's still a relatively new brand. It was only launched in 2018. It was part of a bigger beverage portfolio, like you said, Cincinnati-based. And in 2023, Andy Sauer, who's another marketer with experience working at Jim Beam and J.M. Smucker brands. He reached out to you and brought you on.

What was it about what he was pitching and building that made it so attractive to you?

Corey Smale

The name itself is crazy. Garage Beer. Like, that's crazy. You know, I was like, that's a huge advantage, I'm already there, bro.

Dusty Weis

As one middle aged dad to another, like, that speaks to the core of me.

Corey Smale

Andy's a great CEO, but he’s a better marketer, in my opinion. He's a brilliant marketer, you know. I'm not saying he’s a bad CEO. It's just I recognize like his calling is in marketing, you know. And so when I heard the name, I was like, that's crazy, dude. I almost didn't believe it. I was like, are you serious?

“It's going to be called garage beer?” He's like, “yeah, yeah.” And so that was cool. And also we just clicked. Man, I just got to know him as a person, it was a pivotal time. Like my wife got pregnant when I was at Party Land and like he's raising four kids and like, I just started to, see this dude as a man, you know?

And somebody that I admired, he had some shit that I wanted, you know what I mean? He had, like, real stability and poise and like, a sense of community and some shit that I saw and thought about. So as much as it was like the brand, to be honest, I'd just be fucking with Andy so much, you know, like we're a family company still.

Dusty Weis

From the jump you just hit the ground running with stuff that is just right in the Corey Smale wheelhouse. I don't want to say that you have a playbook but there is a definite recognizable style. As a marketer working for a CEO who's another marketer, how did Andy empower you to make your mark on the brand?

Corey Smale

We have a real trust. We've had it since day one. You know, I think you have that ability to be like, “I'm great at this one thing. I'm awful at all the other things, I better find some other people that are great at those things,” you know. And that's his skill set man. And so the trust was there from pretty much day one, you know, and I was just allowed to kind of go crazy.

Which is what I do. You know, we just kind of start chaos and start having fun and start doing things that we want to see ourselves. You know, we come from the same... We're a couple years apart in age. We're from the same... Like we're from the Midwest. Like we watched the same shit, you know, on TV.

Like there's a lot of shared interests like that. We both love 90s advertising. And so we were already starting to click. We'd have these calls, you know, like, it's so crazy. Now we can only talk for like five minutes. I'm being so fucking busy now. But like back in the day, we talked for like two hours at a time.

You know what I mean? Like, we just were getting to know each other and, like, we got to know each other as people. And then we started working on the brand, and that's unique. You know, you don't really find that in, like, a corporate setting, like that's it's only some entrepreneurial shit.

Dusty Weis

No, and it's hard because you have to make time and space for that. It's not like you can just get to be friends with someone that you're working with without being intentional about that.

Not to get too sappy about it, but like if everything's like go-go-go, deadlines, profit, like it's going to be like, “All right, what's the pitch?” “Here's the pitch.” “All right. Go do it.” All right, that's it.

But if you're actually making time from the jump to work together, I mean, that's setting the stage for a long term partnership that's going to keep going.

Corey Smale

Yeah, it was cool. We just became friends. And there were some months, I think maybe the first 3 or 6 months where I was just working on it. But like so behind the scenes, like I was telling him, here's how we could do a brand book, like, here's some media plans, just like some stuff I learned as a brand manager.

Nothing facing the public, though. I hadn't taken over social, I hadn't done none of that yet. So that was cool too. Is like I was like, oh, this dude sees me as more than like this crazy social media dude. You know, he's like, oh, you're a you're a pretty smart business owner, previous, you know, entrepreneur and also a pretty smart brand marketer.

And I was like, yeah, man, I can do all this shit. Some of it better than the other. But like, that's pretty much my skill is like running a brand and understanding how it connects in culture specifically, probably through digital, specifically through social media, you know.

Dusty Weis

Yeah. There's certainly a method behind the madness. Folks who are a fan of your previous work are going to see its echoes in Garage Beer’s brand. Certainly there's that element of Wild and Free. It feels blue collar. It feels punk rock. It feels a little bit Adult Swim with the absurdity and the obscure cultural references.

Marketing Clip

All beef hot dogs filled with beer!

Dusty Weis

How do you explain the brand voice, quote unquote, that you've developed to someone who's not familiar with your work?

Corey Smale

I always say we are our audience. We're just goofy, dude. Like yesterday, Budweiser did a tweet. It's, “Like this if you would want a Bud for Christmas.” And somebody tagged us in the comments like, “I want a @ garage beer.” And I was like, okay, let me fuck with this real quick. And so I hit the socials like, “Like this if you want a Garage Beer.”

And then I put, as a public tweet to everyone, I was like, “Hey guys, could you help me jump on this real quick? I just want to ratio Budweiser for Christmas.”

It's stupid, you know? And that's what I like.

But with Andy, dude, we have a trust with our audience because we're willing to do shit where it's like, what are you talking about, bro? Like you're going to mail like vinyl records to people. You're going to mail 2000 stickers.

You have this gnarly paper cutting your thumb because you're like licking envelopes, like you're… What the f are you talking about, like, that doesn't make any sense. But, like, I'm willing to go there.

Because I come from, like, hardcore, I come from punk rock, I come from like DIY, where it's like, if I don't do it, no one is, you know? And also that world is rooted in the tangibility of, like merch and seven inches and records and going to show and sweating. Like you feel this stuff, you know. And that's what's missing from so many brands now.

It's like, dude, I can only double tap this thing so hard, you know? Like, I want to know a brand, I want to touch a brand, I want to taste a brand. I want to get really into it with them, and I want to see how weird they can be, you know? Like, that's the whole thing.

Just like, we're into you. We are you. Whatever, let's go. You know, let's do shit that you would want to do because that's what we want to do. And so we’ve never really been positioning ourselves as a brand, you know. And when we have to say brand... like I think in the Ad Age quote, it's like “We want to be the dumbest brand on the internet.”

If we're going to have to be a brand then we'll be the dumbest one, you know. And we're just kind of a collective of like, hooligans or something, you know.

Dusty Weis

I would argue that in 2025, there are not enough chief creative officers who are out there licking envelopes for shit that they're sending to their customers.

Corey Smale

I do everything I'm going to ask someone else to do, you know what I mean?

Dusty Weis

Lead from the front. Get in the trenches kind of guy. Yeah.

Corey Smale

I love this shit. I fucking love this shit still, you know.

Dusty Weis

And for that matter, I don't know about you. It's probably been longer than I'd like to admit since I've been in a mosh pit, but I would imagine that you've spent some time in a mosh pit?

Corey Smale

I came out of mosh retirement, about six months ago at the Hatebreed show.

I was ready. I had to, bro. Yeah.

Dusty Weis

How did that feel? The next day?

Corey Smale

It's okay, because that's a safe spot for, like, old heads. It wasn't like young kids doing the windmills and shit, you know? It was cool. I mean, it felt all right.

Dusty Weis

I was at a Coheed and Cambria show, about a year back, and, I could not believe the number of dudes with, like, gnarly beards down to their sternum who were just sitting there and kind of looking around, waiting for somebody to start the mosh, but then just kind of nodding quietly. And I sat there and I'm like, yeah, I don't mind standing here quietly.

Corey Smale

*singing* “Man your battle stations!”

Dude, I'm on a big Coheed kick lately.

Dusty Weis

Oh, did you see their new video? ...Santa Claus in, like, an anime style cartoon, teaming up with Krampus....

Corey Smale

Coheed is a brand, and they're one that I fuck with heavy. Claudio's amp broke during the show and he's just kicking it. And they were like, done playing. I was like. This is fucking wild.

Dusty Weis

Godfather's Lollipop, bro. I am. I can go so deep on Coheed.

Corey Smale

Coheed is not the biggest band in the world.

Dusty Weis

And they don't have mass appeal. Like most people listen to it and go, “This is weird.”

Corey Smale

Dude, I have to, we gotta stop talking about Coheed.

Dusty Weis

Are we going to start a Coheed fan podcast together?

Corey Smale

If there’s not already one, I mean I'm down bro. I have a huge spot in my heart for Coheed and Cambria.

Dusty Weis

Where was I going with this? Coheed is awesome. They are. Being real. Being real. And being able to dive into that kind of stuff. For the Garage Beer brand, that's exactly the kind of like, deep dive nerd shit that makes the brand work.

But I want to say... and take this the right way, because I feel comfortable in saying that hiring you to work on marketing was the second-best decision that Andy made.

Because not long after he brought on Jason and Travis Kelce as co-owners. And for folks who don't know, Jason is a retired NFL lineman who played his whole career with the Eagles. Travis is the superstar tight end for the Chiefs, a Super Bowl winner and happens to be engaged to Taylor Swift. Together, they have a huge following.

They've got a popular podcast, and when they bought into Garage Beer, the publicity exploded. How did that deal come about?

Corey Smale

Andy. It was Andy. He has a vision and he sees people and he knows the moves. And like, dude, 6 or 7 years before Garage Beer even launched, he started this company called Helio. It was, pre-workout gummies, which is now like what I think greens is like making a bunch of money doing like, oh, yeah.

He had thought of that. He thought of that like, many years ago. Because Travis liked to eat gummy bears on the sidelines. And Andy was like, oh, why want you do some pre-workout ones.

And this is, you know, Travis was in the NFL, but, like, there was no New Heights. No Taylor Swift. None of that. You know? I mean, he hadn't even won Super Bowl I don’t think.

And so he's from Ohio, and Andy was just like, Andy knew a guy, I think, who knew Travis. And it was like, hey, will you be the face of this thing? You know? And he was like, sure. And they got tight and it sold.

It did well. And then Andy, he was like, let me just, you know, like, let's stay in touch, you know? And so fast forward five, six, seven years or something like it's now time. We're like, okay, let's bring on... we wanted to bring on Jason. We're like, let's get Jason, you know? But then Jason was like, oh, I only want to do this with Travis.

Like, this will be the first business that we will do together, like we're all in. And that was just like, oh shit. So then we had to figure out how to do it. But it all comes from just working, good relationships, being loyal, being trustworthy. Like, man, I get it. It's a testament to those things.

Dusty Weis

When Andy told you that he wanted to pursue this, like, what were you feeling inside? He had said, Travis.

Corey Smale

Like, he was like, I did this thing that Travis Kelce and I kept it in the back of my mind. And then also when he was like, oh, so I'm talking to Jason. I was like, oh, this might be real, you know? I knew it would work with Jason, particularly because he can just do so much more...

He's out. He's retired. You know, like he can kind of do whatever he wants to do now. I knew that it was going to be good. You know, I’ll say this. We were the fastest growing beer brand in America before and after the Kelces, but like, it was a little fire. And then the Kelsey, like, 18-wheeler came, backed the tanker truck, and just dumped gas, you know?

And then it exploded. We had a good momentum, it was going, you know. But then that just exploded. Things grew in a way that I don't think any of us thought was possible.

Dusty Weis

So how did it change your plans then? I mean, obviously you had an idea for the direction that you thought that you were going to take the brand. And then that happened. Did they come in with their own ideas for building the brand, or has this just been another fun tool in the toolbox for you?

Corey Smale

I knew that it was very important... Andy and I, we agreed very early on that we don't want to just become an influencer brand. You see a lot of these products that are just like, that's the marketing. We got the guy, that's it. I'm like, that's not it. Like, we are a brand. We're Garage Beer. We already made the hot dogs that exploded with beer inside of them.

Like we were already doing crazy shit. I was like, we're garage beer. So we agree, it's always got to be 50/50. You know? We always got to maintain who we are as Garage Beer. And I think that Jason, he kind saw this, he's like these guys are crazy, and so that kind of informed the stuff he wanted to do.

The first thing we did with him was a video that went viral, where it's just him and Beau Allen washing his Cybertruck like in little shorts, drinking beer, spraying a little hose. It’s like… Low lift!

Like, not even a crazy idea, but we just knew that that would crack, you know? And sure enough, it did. We released that on I think, the first NFL Monday of two seasons ago. So when Jason made his ESPN debut, we launched it that day. And so that sort of informed like, okay, we're immediately going to get wild with this dude.

You know, I think what Jason really likes about the brand is we don't lean too hard on him, you know, like we do our Jason stuff and it's big, we're doing a Super Bowl commercial right now, you know, but we also do our Garage Beer stuff and like, it's got to be equal.

It always has to be. Jason. Sometimes like, we'll be like, oh, we're working on this thing. You know, like we did this bed that we filled a water bed full of beer. It's called the beer bed.

It's like a water bed, but better because it's not water, it's beer.

It had like, a beer tap on the head.

Dusty Weis

Like a water bed, but with a keg tap in the headboard.

Corey Smale

Yes. And so Jason was like, oh, I want to get on that. And we're like, “No.”

We got to do our Garage Beer stuff.

Dusty Weis

How do you tell Jason Kelsce, “No?”

Corey Smale

Because he’s got his own good ideas, dude. He's fine. Don't worry about him.

Dusty Weis

Tell me more about the beer water bed. Because that absolutely slayed me, like the entire setup that you guys did. Where did the idea come from? It's like, here's a dumb thing we could do. And then you went out and did it?

Corey Smale

There's water beds, dude, there's water beds. So why couldn’t there be a beer bed? I can’t believe no one thought of this dude.

People are dumb.

And so when we think of it, Jordan Phoenix is my best friend. He's also our director. And he can get in my head and make things happen. I'll be like, dude, I want to do this. I'll write a script for it. And he'll be like, all right, hang on. And then like, he'll come back to me a week later, we're like, all right, so we can get a kegerator we can drill into the headboard.

I found a water bed. Like he loves, like piecing it all together. And so then we have it and then we make it and then he can also direct the spot, which is fucking crazy. So then we have that, and then we just go.

Dusty Weis

Who got the water bed? And did they actually fill it with beer?

Corey Smale

This guy in, like, northern, like some Chicago suburb. He got it. We couldn't fill it with beer. We did some research. It would get gnarly. That's all I can say in a short amount of time. There's, like yeast and, like, active components of beer that, like, you don't want to nestle your face into at night.

But it was, it’s a real water bed, and there is a kegerator tapped, attached to the headboard. And you can you can have lime or light, depending on whatever you need. You wake up. You're thirsty. You stick your head back.

Dusty Weis

I mean, and then presumably carry that with you into the shower for a Shower Beer. And you're living the dream. Sure. That's the way to go.

Corey Smale

Dude, I'm working on a new one. The next.... I'll break it here, dude, it's called the Beer Hand. The Beer Hand. Are you familiar with the Power Glove?

Dusty Weis

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Corey Smale

Imagine that, but with 2025 updated technology. And instead of being good at video games, it's all designed to make you better at drinking beer.

Dusty Weis

Are you partnered up with Apple for this shit?

Corey Smale

What? No. EBay! I'm partnered up with buying old Power Gloves on eBay and Jordan like retrofitting them with usb-C and like dumb technology. And then we'll make like ten of them.

And that'll be enough to be like, hey, you could get one still, I guess, you know.

Dusty Weis

Okay, I have ideas. First of all, it needs a ping pong ball launcher, so that when you're playing beer pong, you can just *p-chew* and arc it in.

Corey Smale

One thing I'm working on, it's called, the Decision Dome. And it's literally just like the technology that's in an eight ball. You know.

But like a bubble and then the die, it only says “hell yeah.”

If I'm not laughing, we're not going to fucking do it. You know what I mean. Like if it's not stupid enough to where I'm like...

Jesus, it's so dumb, then, like, we're probably not going to do it, but once it hits that level, I will stop at nothing.

Dusty Weis

In that vein, I have to say that the crown jewel of this-is-so-dumb-brilliance that you have achieved, the Brewmite, a martial arts movie that you guys have published on YouTube.

YouTube Clip

“The Brewmite. The world's fiercest fighters come from every corner of the earth.”

Corey Smale

Thank you. Brewmite was tight. Jason was like, it's the Kumite, but it's called the “Brewmite...” It’s like, sick!

Dusty Weis

And we'll drop a link to it. Describe it to someone who hasn't seen it.

Corey Smale

An underground fighting tournament, where the winner gets the golden can of Garage Beer.

Spoiler alert, Jason dies. And Chuck Liddell wins.

Dusty Weis

Chuck Lidell! How did you get Chuck Lidell?

Corey Smale

I don't know, I don't really know how we got Chuck Liddell.

This dude showed up in Miami the day of the shoot on a red-eye. He was like, he was so chill.

The coolest, most chilled out dude!

We kick it.

And he was like, all right, see you then. Just left. I was like, dude, I don't even know how.

I still don't know, I guess because of Jason or something, but like, I'm still not really sure how that all worked out. And we got Travis in that one. So that was cool.

Travis Kelce Clip

Man. This is like Mortal Kombat meets Teemu.

Corey Smale

Yeah, our last one we did I'm the most proud of. It's called Thermal Buzz. It's like a Predator remake.

And we were tripping like oh shit, they're putting a real Predator movie out this fall.

We're fucked.

But then Disney was like, oh, no. Like, we don't have a plan to hype this thing online.

And now people like Leonardo DiCaprio had just been on New Heights. So it was like, wait a second, we could use like us, you guys could help us promote this thing. And so, yeah, there's commercials where it's like the Thermal Buzz, our spot, and then they're like, it cuts to their movie.

Movie Promo Clip

That's something we can all agree on. Predator, Badlands.

Corey Smale

We went to Hollywood.

We got to go to the red carpet party. Dude, it was so fun. Like, just crazy. Like, that's like some just, like, DIY and the mainstream, just boosh.

Dusty Weis

Do you ever just, like, pinch yourself and be like, oh my God, this is my life. This is my career. I get to do this.

Corey Smale

Quickly, quickly, because we have to keep going.

Dusty Weis

So you don't you don't allow yourself to relish in it too much. You just got to move on to the next thing. You keep moving.

Corey Smale

Yeah. I mean, I texted the team today because I was about to be done for break.

What’d I say? I said, “Love you guys. Look what we've been able to do in seven months. Imagine a whole year of this shit. Jesus fucking Christ. I feel for the competition. We're doing something very special here. Even though it feels like our everyday work. It's magic, I swear to God. Thank you.”

Dusty Weis

The results speak for themselves. I gotta drop some numbers here, because they're wild.

Marketing Dive reported that in Q3, sales volumes were up 460% over the past year. Have there been other milestones, other numbers that you get to throw around to send them to the team and just be like, look at this. Hell yes.

Corey Smale

I mean, we had 100,000 Instagram followers last December, and then this year, December, we had 300,000. So I think that's pretty good. Like 3x, you know. And then we just hired this really smart dude, James. He's British and, he's going to be like our head of growth, which is like a whole thing. He's going to like, hack all the social and digital for us.

And he's like, I'll get it to 3 million real quick. He's like, you guys have done it the hard way. I'm like. This is all I know, buddy. So whatever.

Dusty Weis

You have a bigger social following than any of the macro beers. The Bud Light, the Miller Lite... EXCEPT for...

Corey Smale

Budweiser, because Budweiser is so fucking international.

Dusty Weis

Okay, so they're still. You're going to take them down, get them. Is that your New Year's resolution for 26?

Corey Smale

Yeah, it's going to take a while. They have like 700 but we'll get them, I think we'll get them next year for sure. And we're very close behind. But if you look at the engagement, like our shit's going crazy bro. Like it's just, they’re legacy. They've been around, you know, but it's a matter of time.

Until we start catching them, because we got Miller Lite, we got Michelob Ultra, we got Coors Light, we got them all.

Dusty Weis

Speaking of milestones and like, pat yourself on the back moments, Ad Age's Marketer of the Year, I understand that that's maybe a little bit extra sweet for you.

Corey Smale

Oh well, in 2010, my first attempt at being an idiot on the internet, I got fired. Go figure. From an advertising agency.

And I was like, well, fuck it, I'll do my own thing. I was like 23. And so I remember I got some Captain Crunch at the store that day and Captain Crunch, he didn't have no Twitter, no social media, nothing going.

Dusty Weis

This was 2010, like brands had not colonized that space yet.

Corey Smale

And so and we were like me and my friend Mike, we're still best friends to this day. We just launched this thing we call “Where's the Captain?” And, like, we had this whole viral campaign about, like, trying to find where he is.

Dusty Weis

Completely without the permission of the brand.

Corey Smale

Oh, no, no, no. I'm like, if we can do this enough, they'll notice that.

And so we got it on Ad Age and Bob Garfield, who's like a legend at Ad Age…

Dude, he roasted us.

He was just like, Where’s the Captain does no favors for social media proponents.

He was thinking like, social media is not going to last. Shit. Look. But at the time we were like, fuck!

Like he just crushed us, you know what I mean?

We went to Pepsi because they owned Quaker, who owns Cap'n Crunch, and we went up to Chicago at Pepsi. We like we're like trying to pitch the business there. So what's your guys like? Are you an agency? We're like, no, we're just like doing this dude, you know? And they were like, well, you can have some free cereal.

We're like, oh, fuck off. And then.

Then a new company, a new social media company got it, at the time, called VaynerMedia.

Well, it was it wasn't Gary Vee. There was no Gary Vee, it was just called VaynerMedia.

And then I was like, oh my God. And so dude, I was like, at that level with that guy and like, boom, you know? And like, I just kind of fell off with the advertising.

Like, fuck this. I'll go open a donut store, you know what I mean? I'll open a Chinese restaurant.

And now, 15 years later, dude, Ad Age—who said I'm an idiot for trying to do social media—now says I'm the best in the world at it. What the fuck?

Dusty Weis

You got to print those off, frame them and hang them next to each other. Because I think, if nothing else, that's a reminder that this business moves fast and it changes fast. And if you just stay true to yourself and true to your vision, and stay original, there's room to move.

Corey Smale

Like a dawg. My dad works like a dog too.

Dusty Weis

What's your dad do?

Corey Smale

That’s where I got my work ethic. He drove a forklift for a long time.

Dusty Weis

It's tough. Son of a gun. That's a hard job, man.

Corey Smale

He's a real one. And he just worked hard, and, like, I just saw him work hard, work hard, work hard, and, like, it sometimes be frustrating to see him work that hard, you know?

But I was like, damn. Like I saw him get some places with us, you know? And so I was like, shit. Some of it, like I said, some of it’s 80%, just me, like, I'm a dawg.

I'm gonna put my head down and do the work, you know? Yeah, yeah. 19 years, 15 years, you won't be able to deny it. You know? And so here we are.

Dusty Weis

My dad had a job that he hated for 40 years, busted his hump every day and wanted nothing more for me and my sisters than to go out and have jobs that we love. And I still think... I don't know, how's your dad feel about what you're doing now?

Corey Smale

Oh, he can't believe it. I called him in the night. I was staying at a five star hotel. There's a Christmas tree in the room. Called him at like midnight. And I was, like, kind of emotional, like, damn, dude. Because my grandma grew up... she was a sharecropper.

So my grandma grew up on dirt floors, and I'm... staying at the five star hotel, and I call my dad. I'm like, dude, you bridged the gap, bro. Like, that couldn't have been easy, you know what I mean? Like, from here to there in one generation. That's sick. Dude.

Dusty Weis

That's awesome dude.

Corey Smale

Dude, he can't believe what I'm doing. It's cool.

Dusty Weis

I bet, I bet, yeah. So you mentioned this Super Bowl commercial. Looking forward to that. What else is next for the brand as you go charging into 26 here?

Corey Smale

Shit, we're going to have a festival called Garage Fest next year. I wanted to have this thing called Dad Fest for like, years, which is just like stuff for dads to do during the day, like wrestling and beer and nachos and stuff.

Dusty Weis

Where's that gonna be?

Corey Smale

In Ohio. Duh.

Dusty Weis

I don't normally go to Ohio, but I might make an exception for that.

Corey Smale

It kicks ass. Only second to Missouri, where I'm from, the show me state! And so like, we have a crazy product launch coming out in the spring. We have a crazy festival coming out in the fall. We have a crazy collaboration with a very cool brand that does crazy things that aren't in the alcohol space in the fall, like, we added some really awesome people to our team this year.

I gotta give a shout out to this dude Jay, who heads up our shopper and all of our partnerships and like, I don't want to do that shit, dude. Like, you know, and like, they were like, they were counting on me to, like, do that and all this other stuff. I was like, oh.

Dusty Weis

You got envelopes to lick!

Corey Smale

Dude, just what I'm saying. I got stickers to mail, bro. I ain't got time to set up a shopper retail marketing program. So that is how you sell beer, which is ironic. No. Jay's a killer. This kid Alex just joined us. My friend Lauren, who we've been working with for a long time as a freelance producer.

I was like, just come on. Like, we're doing enough shit. Let's go. And then, obviously Lizard, who is my, like, protege? Dude, this kid's 25. She's like, it's fucked up. Like, I'll be working for Lizard, like, pretty soon. And so our team is still super small. We got Andy and then, K.G. is a, you know, CMO and sort of like, he's like the Godfather.

He kind of like, you know, he looks at it, he's like don't do this, do this, you know, and then even some shit, he's like, I don't know, you're fucking crazy Corey, but I guess it works. And so I'm like, thank you.

Dusty Weis

There's an elephant in the room. We haven't talked about it yet. One of your brand owners is getting married to the biggest marketing juggernaut in the whole world. So I have to ask. How many hours of sleep do you lose a night trying to figure out how to land the T Swift Garage Beer crossover?

Corey Smale

Dawg, I don't know, I ain't worried about it. I mean by proxy, we got a lot of Swifties. Look, we sell a lot of Garage Beer Lime. For a beer brand, 40% of our audience is female, which is wild.

Corey Smale

So I'm just, like, cool with that. I don't like to play it too hard, bro. It's obvious.

You see the brands that aren't even affiliated, they use her...

I'm like, that's gross, dawg.

And so it's going to happen eventually.

Dusty Weis

It's unavoidable. But landing it, making it natural. That's going to be the trick man.

Corey Smale

Yeah. It'll work. I mean, we'll figure something out, but.

It's just such...

In wrestling they call it “cheap heat.”

So I'm not going to break kayfabe in order to get some cheap heat.

Dusty Weis

Dude, this has been fun.

Corey Smale

It took me so long to be on this podcast. My God.

Dusty Weis

Glad it didn't suck. Here I am. I have to say one last schmaltzy thing, and then I'm going to let you get on about your day, because I just I got to point out, man, if there is anything resembling a recurring theme in this show, it is this: in the corporate world and marketing in particular, I think the greatest creativity could be choked out by the fear of failure.

Your buddy Andy Pearson from Liquid Death has been raging about this on LinkedIn lately. Where he says that strategy is antithetical to creative... strategy is killing creativity is what he keeps saying. And if you over strategize, you underperform. In terms of creative, I love centering the stories of marketers like you who take big swings.

But more importantly, I think what you've shown us here is that there is a way to come back stronger when you take a big swing and you miss, and your fearlessness and the intentionality with which you have redefined yourself over the last four years are lessons that we can only help to emulate.

So Corey Smale, Chief Creative Officer at Garage Beer, thank you so much for joining us on Live Balloon.

Corey Smale

Thanks, Dusty. I'll do it any time. I appreciate you, brother.

Dusty Weis

Thank you for tuning in. Here on Lead Balloon, we like to take a look at the PR and marketing stories that are too weird or nerdy or offbeat for other comms podcasts, so we hope to see you back here in this feed again sometime soon. Follow us on your favorite podcast app, or check out one of the other 64 episodes in the old archive.

Lead Balloon is produced by Podcamp Media, where we make podcasts for businesses.

Our podcast studios are located in the heart of beautiful downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We work with brands all over North America to help them launch and build podcasts that work. Check out our website, podcampmedia.com

Music for this episode by Divisioner. Sound Engineering and Dialogue Editing by Matt Covarrubias. And until the next time, folks, thanks for listening. I'm Dusty Weis.