The facts are pretty straightforward. The parent company of Budweiser hired an ambitious, arrogant, woke woman to take over the marketing of Bud Light, which was the best selling beer in America. Having little understanding of the product’s market, and being so infected with wokism that she couldn’t comprehend the depth of the cultural divide regarding the current pro-transgender fad, she made the bone-headed decision to associate the brand with Dylan Mulvaney, a biological male internet performance artist who poses as female, both satirizing genuine transsexuals and celebrating them. From that moment, Bud Light was in a binary trap of its own making with no way out. The reaction against the botched marketing decision was over-whelming, with calls for a Bud Light boycott and a sudden fall-off ins sales. When the company tried to backtrack, including the sacking of its clueless marketing guru, the LGTBQ market also turned on the brand.
All of this was completely predictable if the people running the company had been paying attention or had the brains of an aardvark. Instead, the cynical corporate reflex to pander to and exploit any emerging obsession—Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, the pandemic: “In these difficult times….”—led these fools into disaster. Bud Light lost billions in stock value. In May, Modelo Especial overtook Bud Light as the best-selling beer in the U.S.
But could the two opposite poles of the media tell this story straight without seeking to advance ideological propaganda or to deliberately confuse the public? No. Instead, various news sources chose to spin like a Dervish on a Mad Tea Party ride in Disneyland.
The craziest spin came from the Right. “Could It Be That Anheuser-Busch Tanked Bud Light ON PURPOSE?” asked a column on the conservative punditry giant PJ Media. Here’s the theory, first circulated by the conservative sports site, Outkick. “One former Anheuser-Busch employee is speaking out and calling Bud Light’s collapse over Dylan Mulvaney a strategic attempt to forever change the beer’s audience: away from the traditional man, in favor of the 2023 definition of what a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ can be,” Outkick claimed. PJ Media rated the ridiculous hypothesis as plausible. “This …coincides with what Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, said on March 30, just before Mulvaney came out as Bud Light’s new spokesman: …“I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light.” The piece went on,
Heinerscheid added that she had a “super clear” mandate “to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand.” This would require a radical change in how Bud Light was perceived toward “inclusivity.” Heinerscheid explained that this would mean “shifting the tone, it means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive, and feels lighter and brighter and different, and appeals to women and to men.” She claimed that “representation is sort of at the heart of evolution, you have got to see people who reflect you in the work.” So apparently she wanted Bud Light’s advertising to reach out to men who think they’re women, and vice versa.”
This is a laughable conspiracy theory even by the standards of right-wing conspiracy theories. Hanlon’s Razor applies: the Bid Light fiasco was stupidity exemplified, not some kind of sinister plot. Corporations want to, need to, make money. Yes, yes, they also want to be seen as benign and socially responsible, as John Kenneth Galbraith explained more than a half-century ago: it’s basic cognitive dissonance theory. The end goal, however, is still to make money. No company is so certifiably bats that it would intentionally jettison a huge market to embrace a tiny one. Bud Light thought it could have its rainbow cake and eat it too. (That doesn’t quite work, but you get my drift). Morons.
Meanwhile, over at CNN, where news stories go to die, a different spin was being applied. The fact that Bud Light’s popularity was falling right after the Dylan Mulvaney debacle was just a coincidence!
“There are some changing tastes happening, and also, this is the month of May. There’s Cinco de Mayo. There’s also a really clever advertising promotion campaign from Modelo and changing tastes,” reported CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans as June loomed. “Analysts tell us that already there’s been an affinity, a growing affinity, for Mexican beer and spirits for some time now,” Romans added. “So, that’s sort of a tipping point that you’re seeing here.” CNN relegated the boycott to a secondary factor at most. The Washington Post also minimized the relationship of Bud Light’s problems to its trans connection, attributing Modelo’s rise more to long-term market trends than to Bud Light’s rainbow obsession.
Why would the mainstream media do this? They do it because the media is dedicated to promoting LGTBQ agenda items and positions, and that means convincing the public that anyone, any politician and any company that joins the parade is doing the wise and virtuosos thing. They also want to create a false impression of the trans controversy. Bud Light was the Good Guy in this episode. It did the right thing. The backlash was minimal, and only by a few loud, beer-swilling bigots. The real reason Bud Light was dethroned as the top-selling beer was changing tastes. This is all absurd, but CNN and most of the mainstream media want companies to engage in progressive political advocacy, because that’s what the media does.
Are Americans really so gullible and dim that they accept this spin? CNN obviously thinks so. Look, I wouldn’t drink Bud Light if it were free and never got into this mess. However, I resent it when products so associate themselves with political positions that using the product can be reasonably perceived as support for the position. It doesn’t matter what the position is: if that’s what a company is doing, I’m out. I hold no antipathy toward transsexuals whatsoever, but I don’t want to be seen holding a Bud Light if the act of drinking a (crummy) beer has become a political statement for or against them.
Ethics Alarms 
While some claim the New World Freemason Trilateral Illuminati Order (or somesuch) is pulling the strings of the known Universe, BlackRock says HOLD MY BEER
THAT’S interesting. And plausible.
Yes changes in tastes and preferences did change overnight but it had nothing to do with the tastebuds.
It was the marketers who put a bad taste in consumer’s mouths not some taste test comparison between competing brands.
Economics posits that tastes and preferences are a key determinant of demand but “tastes” do not necessarily reflect an olfactory sensation or physical taste. It can but known differences in physical taste will only occur if the consumer decides to try something different. Then what causes that motivation to switch? People only switch when the price of the product is too high for the bundle of attributes the product delivers. Because the recipe never changed the attributes in question must be something other than physical taste. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what changed to cause a precipitous drop in sales overnight.
Bud Light really hasn’t figured out how bad this is yet because of taste. I don’t think I have ever heard someone say they drink Bud Light because it tastes good. They drink it because they always drink Bud Light. It is like eating cheap hot dogs. You don’t do it for the fine taste. Now, if the cheap hot dog company says it hates you and you start eating bratwurst and mettwurst instead, you aren’t going back to those cheap hot dogs. Even though they are cheaper, once you eat something better, it is really hard to go back to the disgusting cheap hot dogs.
As for the right-wing conspiracy theory, I can buy part of it. Lucasfilm famously tried to intentionally alienate their core audience to get a ‘better’ grade of audience. They told the same money losing story over and over again, no matter how many times it failed. “A girl, who is the key to everything, shows up and she can do anything the heroes can do and better, without any training or knowledge”. Sorry for spoiling the plot of the latest Indiana Jones movie. I will disagree with Jacks’s analysis. Companies may need to make money, but the executives don’t. They can fail and fail and fail, but as long as they do so in an ideologically pure manner, it doesn’t matter. They can lose the stockholder’s money all they want and still vote themselves great bonuses. The boards are stocked with the CEO’s of their competitors, and they vote each other bonuses, no matter the performance of the company. The owners of the company have little say in the matter, Wall Street is in charge through the mutual funds.
We’ll probably never know, but in my opinion the whole Dylan Mulvaney thing would probably have blown over rather quickly had it not been for Heinerscheid’s dismissive attitude towards Bud Light’s core audience, calling them “frat boys.”
The idea that the brand needed to broaden its appeal is not without merit. In fact, the brand ran a spot during the Superbowl that highlighted a new approach aimed at doing that. It was positively brilliant – warm, sweet and funny, beautifully produced, and actually (unlike most Bud Light ads of the past) actually made drinking the beer look like fun. – for both men AND women. It was anything but frat boy.
And then they followed up with Dylan Mulvaney. Or, seeing as how it’s Bud Light, “Dilly Dilly” Mulvaney. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I’ve long counseled clients to stay away from political hot buttons unless they’ve absolutely no choice. In our current climate, I view Bud Light’s attempt at “inclusion” in this manner to have been unnecessary, stupid, and think that blowback was predictable (perhaps, even hoped-for – though certainly not to this level). That said, I suspect that Heinerscheid’s clear contempt for the brand’s core customers was what really tore things open. Who wants to buy a product from someone who openly hates you?
Who wants to buy a product from someone who openly hates you?
That’s what today’s consumers are supposed to do, AIM. Heinerscheid is a Harvard grad and a Wharton MBA. She’s a woman, and just guessing here, likely a lesbian and probably a man hater. She’s brilliant and our better in all these ways. Being the hoi polloi, we are supposed to do as we are told. Why should we be surprised she holds us in contempt? We’re contemptible. (See, eg., Hillary Clinton) According to her, we need to have a conversation, which means, as we learned from Barack Obama, she’ll talk and we’ll listen.
I used to think the profit motive would straighten out all of these kids coming out of today’s academy. Boy, was I ever wrong. They’ve already taken over management and are merrily driving the economy off a cliff, “Thelma and Louise” style. It’s clear as day in the media, now it’s even infected Budweiser, of all things.
And, I’ll bet Ms. Heinerscheid already has a better paying job at Meta or somewhere else. She’ll fail up spectacularly.
I am more a mixed drink/liquor drinker than a beer drinker, but I’m familiar with the folks who do drink it, especially in rural PA. You definitely will NOT find favor for anything LGBT in the shit-kicker bars and pubs, and frankly, not even in the places that appeal to more sophisticated folks. Yes, Stroudsburg flies the latest iteration of the rainbow flag during June, but the only places you’ll see flying it themselves are the candle/soap shops, the yoga studios, the niche coffee shops (Starbucks has decided to exit this particular arena in the culture wars) and the other businesses that appeal to the crunchy granola/latter day hippy types. However, those folks don’t drink Bud Lite nor do they mix with those who do.
Bud Lite knows they messed up. That’s why they sent the bonehead who came up with this disaster packing. Some customer bases transfer. Most don’t. This was one that definitely didn’t, and it should have been obvious that it wouldn’t.
The fact is that the revolutionary fire of three years ago has started to burn itself out at this point. The pandemic is over, and most ordinary people are interested in A. getting back to work, and B. making their money go as far as it can in an economy that sucks. Black Lives Matter has been revealed as the grift that it was, and more than a few cities are looking at the wreckage from 3 years ago and saying, “what were we thinking?” Maybe returning to the bad old days of the 1970s wasn’t such a good idea after all. More germane to this post, although extending the benefits/downsides of civil marriage to gay as well as straight couples was one thing, the latest move against the concept of gender itself is, for many, especially parents, a bridge too far. It’s especially a bridge too far when coupled with a move to marginalize them when it comes to the education/indoctrination of their children. It’s even more a bridge too far when it becomes, like Disney or Google or Bank of America, something you just can never avoid unless you want to go live under a rock.
I think this latest attempt to rationalize this disaster is even more a bridge too far. Americans have been treated like idiots too many times and they’re done being fed nonsensical lies that criminal defendants and pro wrestling managers would be ashamed to utter.
Sunday rant:
How are you *celebrating* gender dysphoria, child mutilation, chemical castration, aka– PRIDE month?
Remember, respect of others isn’t enough anymore. You must overtly and conspicuously as possible CELEBRATE those who wish to foist their delusions onto the rest of us out of deep insecurity.
PS. “don’t tell the parents because we know better and they are our kids too after all.”
Our Prez says so and if anyone knows what is best for the kiddies it certainly is crusty ol’ pedo-jo.
Just ask his daughter while Dr Jill looks on in between martinis.
I think the Bud Light brand has been irrevocably damaged, and will never recover its former market share. Also, I saw a (twitter) video from Mulvaney where he said he was abandoning girlhood in favor of a more masculine persona. He seems to be reverting back to the effeminate gay person he originally was, and since he never had “bottom” surgery does that mean he’s no longer trans? Will the trans activists turn on him? Oh, the horror.
One might have thought that the example of Coca Cola would have served as a lesson for the ages for companies both in what not to do and in how to recover.
When’s the last time you saw a can of New Coke in the grocery store?
Granted, though, that this was a couple generations ago — I guess each generation has to learn how to make its own epic blunders. Heaven knows that mine has made its share of them.