James Wilmore: Carlsberg don't do PR disasters...

What were they thinking of?

I'm referring, of course, to the marketing and PR folk at Carlsberg and their decision to run a promotion with The Sun​ - which has now been cancelled.

In case you missed it, Carlsberg, sponsor of Liverpool Football Club for the past 16 years, was planning to run a free pint giveaway in the tabloid over the bank holiday. Ah… free beer, great! That'd be the standard reaction, I would guess, from a fair amount of punters.

The only snag was that the UK's number one daily is about as popular on Merseyside as Alistair Darling at a pub trade event.

This ill-feeling stretches back to 1989 when The Sun​, edited by Kelvin MacKenzie at the time, printed a shocking front page story claiming that in the aftermath of the Hillsborough football disaster, Liverpool fans pick-pocketed victims, urinated on police, and beat up a policeman giving the kiss of life.

The paper later apologised for the report admitting it was a "terrible mistake".

The original story of Carlsberg's link-up with The Sun​ saw all hell break loose on thepublican.com​, with irate fans bombarding the site with comments.

In less than 48 hours of the story breaking Carlsberg performed a U-turn and dumped the promotion.

So, the question remains. Was this just a case of Carlsberg either being unaware, or underestimating, the strength of feeling about The Sun​ that remains in Liverpool?

Or, was it a calculated risk by the company which would have seen a hell of a lot of people, outside of Liverpool, supping on a pint of Carlsberg on the bank holiday?

And what influenced Carlsberg to decide to drop the promotion?

The clue to the answer of this final question may lie in the fact that Carlsberg was able to drum up a quote from Liverpool's chief executive Rick Parry on the issue, saying he was "delighted" the company had binned the link-up with The Sun​.

You couldn't make it up…