The Anheuser-Busch Corporation’s marketing agenda featuring trans person Dylan Mulvaney has backfired on the long-time beer giant, and the repercussions continue to surface following the controversial campaign.
Instead of reaching its marketing goals, the push for diversity, equity and inclusion within companies has been “corrosive,” Fox News reported.
Fox News published that since Mulvaney posted on Instagram the relationship between himself and Anheuser-Busch, which included the likeness of Mulvaney embossed on a Bud Light can, Anheuser-Busch has reportedly seen its market value decrease by $5 billion in recent weeks.
Amid the consumer backlash, it appears as if customers are going elsewhere as news that Bud Light’s dollar share for the latest week lost almost the same amount as some of their competitors gained, according to a report from Beer Business Daily.
Budweiser has also seen two of its top executives placed on leave in wake of the backlash from the marketing ploy. Anheuser-Busch Marketing President Alissa Heinerscheid, who defended using Mulvaney its commercials by saying their goal was to “evolve and elevate the brand,” took a leave of absence for an undetermined amount of time amid the backlash to the Mulvaney fallout and a “widespread boycott from Bud Light drinkers.”
Daniel Blake, who oversees marketing for Anheuser-Busch’s mainstream brands, is also being placed on leave.
Since the backlash began earlier this month, more than 16 days ago, Mulvaney has not posted to his 10.8 million TikTok followers, Newsweek reports.
Yahoo finance recently reported that “Bud Light’s attempt to market to new customers alienated old ones.” In Kentucky, the owner of a BBQ restaurant in Florence noticed that his patrons were growing upset over Anheuser-Busch’s products. Apparently, the Dylan Mulvaney commercial had become a source of tension for his customers.
But, “scenes like the ones in Cummins’s restaurant have been playing out in bars across the country since April 1, when Mulvaney made his Instagram post. The company sent her the special cans to commemorate a year since her transition into womanhood.”
In addition to the fallout, Florida seafood restaurant chain owner has called out Anheuser-Busch Corporation for “causing anger and division” in America and has removed Anheuser-Busch products from its menus. Grills Seafood Deck and Tiki Bar owner Joe Penovich says his chain will no longer carry Budweiser and Bud Light beer in its restaurants.
Penovich wrote a poignant letter to Anheuser-Busch on Facebook that read, “I am disgusted by what you have done and what your are doing. You are the one causing this division and anger in our society. You are responsible for making some of the gay community think Grills does not welcome them. And you knew EXACTLY what you were doing when you launched this campaign. How could you not? ‘Good ole boy beer … meets Dylan Mulvaney? Hmm. Let’s see what that does to the country.’ This goes way beyond transgenderism.”
Mulvaney, a trans TikTok megastar, was born as a man but has soared to stardom for identifying as a woman on social media. He recently said he is “trying really hard to maintain a relationship with God.”
In an attempt to bring back customers, Anheuser-Busch has aired a “Pro-America” ad featuring its famous Budweiser Clydesdales. But even that drew backlash from podcaster Joe Rogan who said on a recent show that “It’s the dumbest, Pro-American, rah-rah … it’s so stupid and cliché. … It hurts my feelings.”
This may be a difficult lesson for Mulvaney, but perhaps through this tribulation we will see God-altering change in his life.
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
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