New in PJ Media:
With Bud Light sales down 26.1% from 2022 levels, Anheuser-Busch executives are finally starting to realize that the controversy over their making the fake female man of the hour, Dylan Mulvaney, the face of the alleged beer brand is not going to blow over quickly or easily. And so only now, over a month after the news first broke that Mulvaney was now the front man for the Drag Queen of Beers, the beer giant has sent a letter to wholesalers in which it addresses the issue directly for the very first time. Will this make the trouble go away and restore Bud Light to its former preeminence? Unlikely.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that Anheuser-Busch’s letter “was forwarded to retailers, bars, and restaurants by Grey Eagle, a Fenton-based company that distributes Anheuser-Busch products to a 14-county region around St. Louis.” Anheuser-Busch didn’t apologize for bringing Mulvaney on or for siding with the Left in the culture war and fueling the demand that we all accept that men can become women. It did, however, do all it could to downplay the whole affair, stating: “This was one single can given to one social media influencer. It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement.”
This was a reference to a can of Bud Light featuring Mulvaney’s cheesy mug, photos of which circulated widely on social media. To dismiss this as “one single can” was disingenuous, as images of the can went around the world and gave Bud Light a level of attention that would have had Anheuser-Busch executives popping open the champagne in any other context. If they had sent Mulvaney the can privately and told him not to publish the image, that would have been bad enough as an affirmation of delusion and insanity, but this image went everywhere. But he did publish it, as Anheuser-Busch had every reason to believe that he would. If it was “one single can,” it got more attention than any other single beer can in the history of beer.
And of course, it wasn’t one single can. In a video, Mulvaney showed himself sitting in a bubble bath sipping a Bud Light, with numerous other cans of the putative beer behind him. Did he make this video out of the kindness of his heart and his enthusiasm for Bud Light? Come on, man! The details of their deal have not been made public, but clearly, Anheuser-Busch brought Mulvaney on to be the pitchman for Bud Light on a far more extensive basis than “one single can.”
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Transmaster says
The thing is Bud Lite is piss poor beer, Once people try better tasting lite beers they will not be back. Germany makes some excellent low alcohol beers.
Ray Jarman says
+1
Transmaster, When you describe Bud Lite as “piss poor beer,” the English and Germans refer all Budweiser beer as “fermented piss.”
Steve Brown says
Agreed.
James Lincoln says
To say that this “trans” marketing campaign by Anheuser-Busch was a “really bad idea” is a gross understatement.
Unbelievably, the top brass at AB forgot who their core drinkers of Bud Light were. One thing is certain: they were not “trans” activists. And even the “trans” activists did not all of a sudden start drinking large amounts of Bud Light.
So Bud Light lost a large segment (at least 26%) of their core drinkers to other non-woke brands (and there are many of them). I predict that they will not be coming back. Why should they – with all of the excellent alternatives (Yuengling)?
Just one question: how could a company as big as Anheuser-Busch – with its huge marketing staff – make a very costly blunder like this?
Kenn Goodwin says
AB did not forget their base, saying quite plainly they were moving forward away from that base.
James Lincoln says
Kenn,
I think that they were actually trying to *expand* their base to include people sympathetic to the “trans” movement.
Now, after AB tried to walk back their pro-“trans” statements, there is even a backlash from the “trans” community.
Anheuser-Busch is losing on all fronts.
Steve Brown says
AB forgot who their core drinkers of Bud Light were. Absolutely! They should have known they were mostly bigoted transphobes.
somehistory says
One cannot have a fear…real or otherwise…of something that does not exist. There are no “trans” people. It’s all made-up for profit $$ and to twist the minds of the little kids.
As far as being “bigoted,” there is no crime in disliking someone. There is only a crime if the one doing the disliking, also carries out an action that is criminal.
Somewhere along the line, people became confused about bigots and the meaning of the word. Just as there is confusion among the young about this “trans” lie. Many of them believe it’s real.
Fred says
Budweiser said they wanted to be more inclusive and if they had run an ad in a bar with a politician, a lumberjack, a woman, a dwarf, and a transgender all drinking beer no one would have cared. But advertising budweiser while a transgender takes a bath I find offensive, I find him/her making fun of real women offensive. That being said Budweiser has a perfect right to advertise their beer any way they want. I have a perfect right not to buy their product. I won’t and I won’t buy woke-a-cola, sporting goods from dicks, kneepads from nike. I don’t like things shoved down my throat. Get woke, go broke. These companies while they may initially make see a rise in their sales, in the long run are setting themselves up to lose market share. In Budweiser’s case lose the business…..they struck a nerve then had the audacity to look down their noses at the folks that bought their beer. Their lack of remorse made it seem like they said, “Those ignoramus will get over it”. No they won’t! I have been enjoying this because woke companies have been a constant irritant now they are a constant source of laughter. It is really stupid to irritate the people that buy your product sometimes colossally. It is my fervent hope they all go out of business. It is great that budweiser found something to believe in but to think that what they believe in is what everyone else HAS to believe in is tyranny. There are many roads in life. I will choose the one I take.
James Lincoln says
It’s getting harder and harder to keep track of all of the woke companies, Fred.
somehistory says
I was irritated when companies advertised their products by making men look stupid…in front of their wives, their kids, their neighbors. it seemed they wanted people to believe they were stupid if they bought the product. Dumb way of doing business.
The ads with little kids and puppies were the best.
Joe1 says
If Dylan is a 6 year old girl (that is what he pretends and he is serious), why is it legal for him to drink beer? I have heard that people who take psychiatric drugs should not be consuming alcohol. It is as if Bud Lite is advertising their beer for 6 year old girls, or maybe they think that you have to be mentally ill to drink Bud Lite.