Bud Light, Tom’s Toothpaste, And The Reinvention Of Maine

American Thinker ^ | 12 Nov. 2026 | Bill Ponton

[MtnClimber]

What we prefer as customers or citizens is not what our betters have planned for us.

We all know the adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Unfortunately, somewhere between the invention of PowerPoint and the proliferation of executive MBAs, this principle appears to have been replaced in executive suites by another: If it ain’t broke, you’re not innovating hard enough.

Consider three seemingly unrelated developments: Bud Light’s ill-fated collaboration with Dylan Mulvaney, Tom’s of Maine’s decision to sweeten its once-distinctive toothpaste, and the role of Maine’s political elite in a facelift that fashioned the state as diverse and inclusive. They all have the common denominator of decision-makers believing incorrectly that they knew what other people ought to want.

Act I: Bud Light Discovers Its Customers Need Improving

In 2023, Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, faced a problem familiar to every ambitious marketing executive. Her company sold an enormously popular product with a well-established customer base. A lesser executive might have regarded this as a satisfactory state of affairs. Heinerscheid saw an opportunity for transformation. Bud Light, she suggested, needed to move beyond its traditional fraternity-oriented image and cultivate a more inclusive audience.

Enter Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender social-media personality who participated in a sponsored Instagram promotion featuring a personalized Bud Light can. The collaboration was relatively limited. Mulvaney wasn’t appointed the brand’s permanent spokesperson, and the commemorative can wasn’t intended for retail sale. But the resulting controversy was anything but limited. A consumer boycott erupted. Sales fell sharply. Heinerscheid went on leave. Bud Light discovered that one could generate enormous publicity without necessarily generating a corresponding enthusiasm for purchasing beer. The central irony was that Bud Light’s traditional customers had never requested a new cultural identity for their beer. They wanted a familiar product.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: leftism

[MtnClimber]

This is what happens when you hire woke employees. But the leftists in HR want woke employees.

[Avoiding_Sulla]

Implementing a plan diametrically opposite of the old Broken Windows policing. Natural inclination of criminals?

[T. P. Pole]

Taking it a step further back, big corporations were forced to diversify their executive boards and felt the least harm could be done in HR, which is why so many of them are big black liberal women.