My frustrated high school Latin teacher Miss Rounds, who once told me I was the most infuriating student she ever had, would have been amazed to see me include four Latin words in a headline, but that’s not an explanation for the “addenda.” These are:
1. A bit after I posted the previous commentary, I came across this news from earlier in the week. Even though its marketing wizardry had driven off 26% of its marketing base and cost Bud Light its long-held perch as America’s favorite beer, the brand’s owner, Anheuser-Busch InBev was honored this week at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the so-called Oscars of the ad industry, with one of the event’s highest honors: Creative Marketer of the Year for the second anum running. (That’s five, Miss Rounds!) AB InBev’s global chief marketing officer, Marcel Marcondes, was also given Cannes Lions’ main stage to present the event’s opening seminar, described in programming notes as an examination of AB InBev’s “relentless focus on connecting with consumers in meaningful ways.”
You can’t make this stuff up. The awards body, which is owned by London-based Ascential Events, announced AB InBev’s win for brilliant marketing in March, before the Dylan Mulvaney disaster struck. Leila Fataar, founder of cultural and marketing strategy firm Platform13 opined, among others, that “In the spirit of fairness and credibility, I think it would be a big and the right gesture for AB InBev to give the 2023 award back, make the changes necessary and come back even stronger.”
You know, like with the creative wizardry of the newly unveiled “Bud Light drinkers are fat, slovenly, clumsy white yahoos who are simply hilarious!” video.
The WSJ story further explicated the reason for my post, which was not to keep flogging Bud Light for associating its brand with the trans madness. I intended to point out that this was more evidence of how the Woke Virus has crippled the professions, if one considers marketing a profession (marketers clearly do) or, if you don’t, the creative trades as well. All marketers and ad mavens have to do is understand human nature, yet class, ideology, arrogance, insularity, stereotyping and bias have apparently blocked them from what psychologists, experience and common sense had taught the industry for decades.
Even when they have been proven spectacularly, disastrously wrong, today’s marketing “experts'” reaction—Just like the lawyers, doctors, public health officials, educators and journalists—is still ‘we’re the smart and virtuous ones, and those others—the deplorables— are too primitive to understand.’
2. Also after the post, and after an esteemed EA commenter protested that the ugly Americans ad “is one of the best ads” that “appeals to the average consumer”, (I hope for Bud Light’s sake that he drinks a lot of beer) I decided to see if Conservative Central— PJ Media and Instapundit—had covered the story. They had. Since the fake transsexual approach had been especially unpopular with conservatives, I was interested to see if our colleague’s opinion was shared, and if so, by how many.
There are 137 comments on the latest video following the Instapundit link. If there was a single one that agreed that it would appeal to the average consumer, I missed it. A representative sample:
- “Seriously Bud- go to the middle of the country. Find the skeevyest biker bars in the middle of the sticks, and find the most cynical and bitter 50ish barmaid you can. Hire her as your new head of marketing.”
- “Well, ‘Please Drink Our Beer Again, You Oafish Hicks’ is a big improvement over Bud’s prior pitch. Still, there is some room left for perfection.”
- “Oh my Lord. the cringe. Haven’t they fired that twenty something marketing MBA with no sense of brand or history yet? Geezus”
- “They basically did, but replaced her with a different twenty something marketing MBA with no sense of brand or history.”
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“I think the idea that AB was deliberately running off their customers is nuts. But I’m willing to believe my own theory -AB marketing has been infiltrated by their competitors.”
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“Wow. Just wow. I bet the casting call included the words ‘white and missing teeth required.’”
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“Well, that commercial sealed the deal. I’m gonna run right out and get me some beer, any beer that doesn’t portray men as chuckleheads. So thanks AB for letting me know exactly what you think of us after your self inflicted huge mistake.”
- “I think the Bud Light marketing team should win another ‘marketing’ award for this. Maybe the Golden Shovel for digging the deepest hole for a brand the fastest.
- “I tried to watch the latest attempt at wooing back their base and quit half way through. It’s just a bunch of people doing stuff that makes them look like they’re stupid. Who did they hire to replace the last chick? Her sister?”
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“They’ll keep suffering because they don’t get it.
“The people who (used to) drink Bud Light are just regular folks who were NEVER ‘first class’ Americans (and know it), but are tired of having been treated as third or fourth class Americans for the past 40 years. NAFTA was the beginning. Their jobs were shipped overseas. Since then these US citizens have had (first) globalist and (now) woke culture shoved down their throats. Trans + Bud Light was the breaking point. The people at Anheuser Busch could try treating their customers with respect. They could try treating US culture icons with respect.
They could try treating American history with some respect.” - “I didn’t hear a mea culpa in there. But I saw you making fun of people like me. Suffer, bitches!”
- “As I said a few days ago on another thread, beer by its very nature is supposed to be apolitical–a refuge for the working class from the relentless onslaught of the leftist’s zeitgeist. Anheuser Busch decided to occupy that refuge and pi$$ all over it by making beer political. No stupid marketing scheme will succeed until they acknowledge that they violated those conceptual frontiers and can convince beer drinkers that they’ll respect those borders in the future. It’s a little like the Wehrmacht trying to convince Poland that this whole invasion thing was just a temporary misunderstanding and they’re really sorry, but can they still keep the Danzig corridor, please?”
(Yes, that really is a photo of a skunk that got its head stuck in a Bud Light can a few years ago. He was okay.)
Ethics Alarms 
Jack wrote:
Even when they have been proven spectacularly, disastrously wrong, today’s marketing “experts’” reaction—Just like the lawyers, doctors, public health officials, educators and journalists—is still ‘we’re the smart and virtuous ones, and those others—the deplorables— are too primitive to understand.’
Hillary Clinton — the gift that keeps on giving. How much of our current cultural plight can be directly traced back to Hillary and her husband?
Don’t answer that. I don’t think my heart could take it.
Who would’ve believed I could come to the point where being called a racist, sexist, trans- and homophobic redneck hick could be considered a compliment? They say if you live long enough…
My opinion, take that for what it is, is that under almost any other circumstances, that ad would have been fine. There is a streak in American rednecks that is proud of their redneckery, and is willing to compare just how red their necks are against their neighbors.
Something like this, in another time, could and probably would be seen as more of a tribute than a dig. A shared joke. But reality asserts, and having just come off a scandal where they hired a trans spokesperson on the heels of their marketing VP saying they needed to find new customer bases to replace their current crop of boors, this doesn’t have the playful undertones anymore.
As we’ve been told, hundreds… thousands of times, offense is taken, not given. It really doesn’t matter if InBev’s 20-something marketing student thought this was a great plan and an olive branch, the customer base isn’t in the mood for self-depreciating humor. InBev insulted their customer base, they don’t get to make in-group jokes right now like nothing happened.
In other words, “Read the room.” Bingo.
Indeed, bingo.
It’s one thing when country singer Alan Jackson sings “It’s all right to be a redneck,” and talks about eating barbeque and partying at night dancing to country music in your brand new boots, while at the same time acknowledging driving around in a dirty old truck and shooting ducks a la Duck Dynasty. It’s also one thing when we Italians talk about copious pasta nights and strong family bonds, while also acknowledging things like holding grudges, superstition, and taking FOREVER to say goodbye. As you point out, a joke plays one way when everyone hearing the joke is also in on the joke.
However, there is nothing funny about some supercilious Starbucks drinker making a joke about how the front row of NASCAR racing has more legs than teeth or some whitebread wokester joking about how Italians are all in the Mafia. That’s like me doing bad accent work and saying all 7-11s are owned by Indian Americans who don’t wash and don’t know how to drive. Being in on the joke and the subject of it is one thing, just being the target of it, by someone who thinks he’s better than you? Nope. At this point this humor isn’t even poking fun, it’s just poking.
So, if a white, Ivy League educated man makes comments about how sleazy, low-class, and stupid black women are, then makes a commercial with black women portrayed that way, is that SELF-deprecating humor?
It is only self-deprecating if you are making fun of yourself, not when you are making fun of people you have clearly stated are ‘others’.
Five years ago, I don’t think you’d associate the brand of Bud Light with coastal elites.
Five years ago, Bud Light’s brand absolutely was that of working class middle America. They could have made those jokes because it would have been self depreciating humor.
If they wanted to make an ad mocking people they would have done better to make an ad mocking their old marketing team. That might have smoothed some things over.
Boy howdy.
But of course, all the Gen Z emos would’ve been triggered. That’s the thing about wading into the culture wars — there is no way to win, because you always piss somebody off, especially when they’re paying attention, as in the instant case.
So far, their marketing strategy post Mulvaney would earn a perfect score for what not to do.
You aren’t quite right. You can still be Arby’s and ‘We have the meats!” and not hurt your sales. Vegetarians don’t eat at Arby’s. Now, in today’s society Arby’s is in trouble because you can’t do such things and get a loan or accept credit cards. The banking establishment will punish you and run you out of business if you don’t comply. This shouldn’t be allowed for regulated monopolies, but the regulators agree with discrimination.
Too right. This is the ultimate weapon of the censorious Left — to deprive the disfavored of access to the financial system while claiming that it’s private companies doing it and they can do what they want.
This must end, by main force if necessary.
Jack,
Thanks for conceding.
-Neil
Wait, what? You mean about the skunk?
I don’t think the commercial is dumb at all.
In fact, I think it’s low key brilliant.
But you have to dissect some things to figure out why exactly it is brilliant.
To the marketing executives now at Budweiser, there are four kinds of people: people who never before drank Budweiser and never will, people who do not yet drink Budweiser but might someday, people who continue to drink Budweiser despite their marketing hiccup, people who stopped drinking Budweiser because of their marketing hiccup.
Anyone in advertisement knows to ignore the first group. Also, there’s no concerns with the third group. The second group does not seem targeted here whatsoever- and, if you focus on that group, you will think this commercial is idiotic. Don’t though.Focus on the fourth and final group. That fourth and final group subdivides as follows: (a) people who have discontinued drinking Budweiser and will never drink Budweiser again no matter what the company does, and (b) people who were irritated, but, in time could come back to drinking Budweiser.
The marketing executive says about group (4)(a): “Then, they are gone.” [This, to me is an ethics line from the first TMNT movie- when Raph loses a sai Splinter simply says, “Then it is gone”- classic- but I’m digressing.]
Alright, so now we know we are only targeting group 4(b): those who are pissed, but could come back. One of the keys in marketing is attempting to get people to identify with the brand itself. Those in 4(b) likely are those who, at one point, did identify with the brand. [Being a Bud or Bud light drinker.] So, then, what the marketing is doing is saying- if we remind them that they make screw ups too- without being overt about it- their minds will do the following: “Budweiser made a big mistake, I make big mistakes sometimes too, I want to be forgiven for my big mistakes, and so, Budweiser too can be forgiven for their big mistakes.” [Notice that the mistakes in the commercials are all arguably very big mistakes- that any non-moron could avoid- remember how Budweiser made a really big marketing mistake any non-moron could have avoided. That’s no coincidence.]
My verdict: brilliant, not dumb.
I, however, reside happily in category one: if I’m going to have a beer, which is quite rare, I’m gonna have a Corona with a lime, please. So, I was unaffected. We’d probably need to find someone in category 4(b) to know whether the commercial worked.