Bud is no wiser
Anheuser-Busch (AB) seeking to pass off a man for a woman in their latest advertising campaign, hitched their Clydesdales to 26-year-old transgender Dylan Mulvaney that only reinforces their wokeness.
Overnight, Mulvaney became the image of Bud Light with his face splashed on the cans of the nation’s bestselling brew. One friend said he thought the look was a Surgeon General’s warning that if you drank too many Bud Lights you may wake up next to an ugly woman with plumbing.
The best customer is the one you have, so why alienate them? The same friend told me Bud Light tastes like horse urine, that’s why they have all those Clydesdales. Having never imbibed in horse urine, I took him at his word.
There are thousands of microbreweries across the country, and you are drinking Bud Light? It is like eating Wonderbread when there is a bakery next door.
If AB wants to expand their base, feature an accomplished young woman instead of a man who is a caricature of the insipid tramp you pray your daughter never becomes. Such a pathetic advertising campaign is orchestrated by an indoctrinated public relations ensemble who can’t fix a flat or use self-checkout.
AB already possessed a 100% Corporate Equality Index (CEI) score, which rates wokeness prior to bringing Mulvaney onboard. It’s a good bet that most Bud Light consumers have no idea what CEI is, but they do now: Clueless – Entitled – Ignoramuses.
Not a fermenting bunch, the Bud Light cadre stepped up to the bar and ordered a boycott where follow the money is creed with the potential to make “go woke, go broke” a reality. The embargo is being hailed as one of the most successful in recent memory.
In their April 23 edition, Insights Express, a beer industry newsletter, called AB’s lost sales from the Mulvaney advertising campaign “staggering.” Moreover, Beer Business Daily confirmed, “We’ve never seen such a dramatic shift in national share in such a short period of time.”
Sales and the totality of AB’s market share continue to shrink. AB executives should be cognizant of how statistics constantly underscore that some customers never return. Provided the transgender community is as formidable a market as AB believes, they should be able to reverse their losses.
That has yet to occur.
Once you step into the woke quicksand, they demand even more virtue signaling and validation. Businesses need to focus on making an excellent product, not selling a political ideology. Companies can choose to go internally woke with training de rigueur, while hiring and promoting for things other than ability. Nevertheless, when companies fail to distinguish between the two, they only polarize their clientele and play havoc with their stockholders.
What Bud Light executives dismiss is their beverage has always been trans – water identifying as beer. AB should have just introduced a new beer with a rainbow can called TransLight or Bud Light-in-the-Loafers.
Saying they want to get away from their “fratty image” and promote “inclusivity” is their dog whistle for heterosexual white males. Marketing is about gaining customers, and customer service is about keeping them, while advertising is about growth without disgruntling your base.
The leftist echo chamber rings loudly throughout corporate America and the Democrat Party. The transgender mafia claims to be oppressed yet spooks a multibillion-dollar company to conform, while alienating their customers.
AB’s debacle is another teachable moment for woke corporate America. Picking sides, however, does not have to mean you are committed.
With Gay Pride month in June, AB will be on tap for an encore.
Two AB marketing executives were placed on a “leave of absence,” which suggests AB is not at all serious. Rather, it is basic damage control where they believe playing the waiting game is best.
AB, like the sporting events they sponsor, does not belong to one cultural group. It can be one thing to have different political opinions, yet folks can still enjoy a beverage and sporting event together. That, however, is not how corporate, political, or sporting America works anymore. You must signal your virtue in every arena of life, or be labelled a racist, fascist, or bigot.
Such absurd behavior only results in a weaker America for all.
