Pabst Blue Ribbon pulls a KitKat: Why brands are turning cargo theft into marketing stunts
Earlier this month, Pabst Blue Ribbon took to Instagram to announce that, in a very real heist, someone stole 40,000 pounds of beer from the company.
In the post, the brand gave the thief “18 days and 44 minutes to return our truckload of beer, no questions asked” and called on its audience to “help us solve this mystery” for an undisclosed reward.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because an almost identical scenario played out for KitKat five months ago.
Back in March, the candy brand turned the (again, real) theft of more than 413,000 candy bars into a marketing campaign that included multiple social media posts, a bespoke website, and countless of organic media placements.
KitKat ultimately won multiple awards—including a prestigious Cannes Lions this summer—for seizing upon the heist and spinning it into a marketing opportunity.
Now, it seems like Pabst is looking to have its own lemons-to-lemonade moment.
What’s happened?
Since August 21, Pabst has taken to Instagram multiple times to implore users to be on the lookout for a “missing truck” carrying its 40,000 pounds of beers.
According to the county police department in Montclair, California, the beer was indeed stolen in two consecutive incidents at the Anheuser-Busch distribution center located at 4545 Brooks Street.
The first incident, per an August 29 Facebook post from the department, took place around 10:00 a.m., when a shipment valued at approximately $45,000—destined for Tucson, Arizona—was picked up for delivery but never arrived at its intended destination.
The second incident came just an hour later, when “approximately $25,000 worth of Anheuser-Busch/Pabst Blue Ribbon product was obtained after a purported subcontracting company submitted fraudulent documentation to arrange the pickup.”
Investigators found notable similarities between the two thefts, the department said, and are therefore looking into whether they were part of the same operation.
While Pabst has repeatedly referred to a “missing truck” involved in the heist, Lieutenant Rick Dominguez at the Montclair Police Department told Fast Company that the theft only encompassed the stolen cargo (i.e. beers), and that his team is not searching for a missing truck.
Pabst did not immediately respond to Fast Company’s request for comment on the discrepancy.
How Pabst is turning lost beer into lemonade
Cargo theft—especially in the food and beverage industry—isn’t unheard of. It’s just that, until now, brands weren’t exactly keen to share these incidents with their fans.
According to a report from the cargo theft prevention network Verisk CargoNet, estimated cargo losses in 2025 surged 60% year-over-year to nearly $725 million, while confirmed cargo theft incidents increased 18%. Food and beverage theft, in particular, shot up by 47%.
“Criminal enterprises are becoming more selective and sophisticated, targeting extremely high value shipments rather than relying on opportunistic theft,” Keith Lewis, vice president of operations at Verisk CargoNet, said in a press release.
Understandably, brands are not usually turning theft into social media moments, given the negative implications that it can have for the company’s security measures. (See the major backlash against the Louvre following its stunning heist last year.)
However, KitKat’s serendipitous marketing win earlier this year proved that PR, in a case like this, is all about context.
Break me off a piece of that publicity
When a beloved product is stolen in ridiculous circumstances, no one is hurt, and the financial damage is manageable, customers appear to be willing to accept cargo theft as more of a silly anecdote than an actual reputational ding.
After KitKat announced that 12 tons of its candy had been stolen, for example, the outpouring of support it received from both fans and customers was so strong that the brand created a “Stolen KitKat Tracker” tool to help users identify whether their chocolate bar might’ve been part of the heist.
At the time, commenters on Reddit called it “the most harmless heist of the century.”
Pabst seems to be aiming for a similar reception.
Already, its post announcing the stolen goods is tracking to more than 50,000 likes. (A comment from KitKat under the post reads, “I know a thing or two about these kinds of things.”)
Meanwhile, commenters are having a field day turning the situation into fodder for jokes, including several topical users who are asking why the culprit hasn’t been caught by a Flock camera yet, and one person on the Montclair Police Department’s page who wrote, “The real crime is stealing that kind of beer, they should go to prison for life.”
What’s next?
As of this writing, Pabst fans have eight days left to find the missing beer. It’s unclear what exactly the brand plans to offer them in return, but what is certain is that it hopes to follow KitKat’s example by turning this unfortunate loss into a brand win.