Posted on 05/03/2023 12:02:08 PM PDT by Morgana
ST. LOUIS — Anheuser-Busch is now telling retail customers that a recent controversy is just a tempest in a pint glass.
In a letter to wholesalers that was forwarded to some local bars and restaurants, the brewery addressed the backlash to a marketing campaign featuring transgender social-media influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which led to a steep decline in Bud Light sales over the last month.
“This was one single can given to one social media influencer,” the letter states. “It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement.”
Mulvaney, 26, posted a video on TikTok showing a can of Bud Light with her face on it that was given to her to celebrate her 365th day of girlhood. The video also showed her sipping a beer as part of March Madness, and she joked that she did not know which sport she was promoting.
A-B’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. Grey Eagle does not distribute to the city of St. Louis, Jefferson County and parts of Washington and Iron counties.
Grey Eagle included a cover letter. “Anheuser-Busch did not intend to create controversy or make a political statement,” it said.
“In reality, the Bud Light can posted by a social media influencer that sparked all the conversation was provided by an outside agency without Anheuser-Busch management awareness or approval,” Grey Eagle continued in its letter. “Since that time, the lack of oversight and control over marketing decisions has been addressed and a new VP of Bud Light marketing has been announced.”
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
I used to drink Bud & Bud light Lime.... NEVER AGAIN.
I’m sick of having the homosexual agenda rammed down my throat by every media outlet. By trying to make me believe every family is multi racial and that being woke is ok.
It’s insulting
Up yours IM BEV... Same bastards we ran from 250 years ago.
Not only does A-B management have a bad case of the woke virus, but they think consumers are stupid too. Their story is about as plausible as some 16 year old explaining why it is OK for him to be home late, clearly drunk, and with empty beer cans in the car because he was just working as an extra in a Budweiser commercial.
Nobody with any brains at all will believe the story.
The uncompensated PR fix that will never get used anyway:
“Good evening. We ran an ad that made a lot of people angry. I want you to know that I get it. You just want to be able to drink your beer without politics. Our FORMER marketing team tried to shove their politics down your throat. I saw the response where [whatsherface] gloated that she didn’t need our loyal customers, that she wanted to go chase after young, woke people. She never once mentioned quality or loyalty or enjoyment. So she’s gone. It shouldn’t be about left or right, or new or old, or woke or traditional. It should be enjoying a beer. I get it. I hope I can earn back your trust.”
I think in all fairness we need to add:
Because Bud Light is lousy beer.
They might stop making it, but likely they will just wait for the next major outrage to cover this up in the collective mind and it will be rabbit holed. so they slow production to a minimal amount for several months to a year and then ramp up again when everyone else is preoccupied with the latest offense.
Bud Light as a brand will probably never fully recover, but I doubt they will completely go under either.
Yet they fail to apologize to their loyal customers.
If they paid Dylan, it was formal.
It’s not a boycott.
It is a corporate death sentence. The brand is dead and A=B will have to move on to other markets.
There is no coming back.
If you knowingly drink A-B products you are signalling to the world that you are pro-Trans, pro-ESG, pro-Woke, and so on.
Just realized:
“We pretend we’re patriotic. We give lip service towards honoring and respecting the people who made our country great. But we’re really a bunch of whiny, northeastern liberals who hate you and everything you stand for. We’re Anheuser-Bush beer, the makers of Bush beer, and the makers of Bud Light. And no, I’m not spelling Bush incorrectly. No new taxes, a thousand points of light, mission accomplished, we’re all socialists now.”
I guess one leftist elitist from Harvard slipped in and caused this upset unbeknownst to the executives. Just more leftist plausible deniability.
Laughing Out Loud!!! Not getting your ass off the hook!!!!
I didn’t hear an apology in there. Only explanations and excuses.
really sounds like an apology
So it sounds like we are past denial and anger and into the bargaining phase.
This is by no means definitive, but I did a quick image search and I found images with him holding a single can with his picture and a six-pack of normal-looking Bud Light cans sitting on the table in front of him. I have not been able to find anything showing multiple cans with his picture on it. That being said, too little, too late.
“I did not know that coors was also distributed by their parent company”
Molson Coors is Coors parent company.
No one runs a business with the intention of having sales drop 26% (so far). No one builds a successful brand name only to trash it and be forced to create a whole new one to replace it.
As other posters have pointed out, they're seeing an increase in Stella Artois ads because InBev hopes an increase in Stella sales can offset at least some of the lost sales of Bud Light. The finance folks at InBev had to go out, hire an agency, create ads, and run them, all because InBev marketers damaged their own brand.
This is not a boycott; it's a change in behavior. The comparison is not to other boycotts but to an initially successful product that disappeared due to a change in public perception. A good example is another alcoholic drink; Zima.
https://www.mashed.com/197573/the-untold-truth-of-zima/
“This was one single can given to one social media influencer,” the letter states. “It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement.”
Yes, it was a formal campaign. Until you fire the advertising team that came up with this fiasco, issue an actual apology to your drinkers, you will continue to lose money.
I read this when it first came up, wondered why it wasn’t repeated.
lol
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