Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has ramped up demands that Anheuser-Busch hand over documents in relation to an investigation of whether Bud Light’s marketing promotion with a transgender influencer was marketing beer to kids.
“The level of cooperation the Committee receives will bear significantly on my assessment of whether this is part of a broader problem across the Anheuser-Busch InBev product line and whether changes to federal law are necessary to prohibit Anheuser-Busch InBev from marketing beer to children,” the Republican senator wrote in a letter (pdf) to Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michael Doukeris last week, claiming that AB InBev hasn’t sent over the documents three months after he asked the firm.
Mr. Cruz is seeking communications between the company and the transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, as well as social media content scripts, the firm’s corporate policy for advertising, and data the beer company possesses on the age demographics of the influencer’s following on social media.
The senator made note of Code Compliance Review Board (CCRB) member’s dissenting opinion that found that “Mulvaney appeals to persons below the legal drinking age with a ‘special attractiveness’ … is especially attractive to young teens and girls; is often recognized as preadolescent; and caters to very young people.” Ultimately, the CCRB majority found there was nothing in the Instagram posts that would “have special attractiveness below the legal drinking age,” according to its report.
The board also found that the influencer’s audience age demographics were more than 80 percent aged 21 or older. The board has a compliance standard of over 73 percent.
“Moreover, even now that the CCRB has completed its review, Anheuser-Busch persists in refusing to provide the requested documents, revealing plainly that the ongoing CCRB review was never the real reason for Anheuser-Busch’s refusal to cooperate. Anheuser-Busch is now suggesting that CCRB review was sufficient, and that it need not cooperate with congressional document requests,” said Mr. Cruz’s letter. “This position is untenable; Anheuser-Busch does not decide whether and when a congressional investigation is concluded.”
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