In one of the feel-good stories of the month, woke Anheuser-Busch can’t win by losing after reports started leaking out that they had offended the very woke mob they were trying to appease with their initial Dylan Mulvaney promotion.
The backlash to Bud Light is now well known and continues to make a huge dent in the bottom line of parent company Anheuser-Busch. The American Tribune has closely followed this story, reporting that year-over-year sales had plummeted over 26% in the latest available data. This continued a trend of hitting new lows for the past several weeks now.
The American Tribune most recently covered the insincere attempt to woo back customers by the clueless beer giant, which released a boilerplate, non-apology statement for the ruffling of feathers. Not once, though, did the statement acknowledge the specific issue that led to the boycott.
That leads us to this great moment. Whereas the leftist talking heads were saying just five seconds ago that anyone boycotting Bud Light was phobic, one Chicago gay bar announced it would no longer be offering Anheuser-Busch products either because it had distanced itself from a position of support for the 2SLGBTIA+++ community.
“Bud Light getting it from both sides now…” conservative country music star John Rich tweeted, sharing an article from Block Club Chicago.
Bud Light getting it from both sides now…https://t.co/AySOPBxvBd
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) May 6, 2023
“A slew of Chicago gay bars have stopped selling Anheuser Busch InBev products after the beer giant distanced itself from transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s Bud Light marketing campaign amid anti-trans backlash,” the article wrote.
“2Bears Tavern Group, which owns four gay bars from Uptown to Rogers Park, was the first to drop Anheuser-Busch InBev, posting on Instagram Thursday that its abandonment of Mulvaney amid controversy “shows how little Anheuser-Busch cares about the LGBTQIA+ community, and in particular transgender people, who have been under unrelenting attack in this country,” it continued.
“We must also hold brands accountable if they take active steps against LGBTQ+ equality, visibility and safety,” Sidetrack posted.
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This is too perfect. Bud Light tried to pick a side in the culture war, got hammered for it, and when it backtracked faced the same heat from the other side. There’s a lesson in this somewhere…
Leading to this hilarious turn of events was a statement from Michel Doukeris, the chief executive of Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev. He released comments minimizing Bud Light’s relationship with Mulvaney, claiming that the relationship was not a marketing campaign.
In his words: “We need to continue to clarify the fact that this was one can, one influencer and one post and not a campaign… As we move forward, we have adjusted and streamlined our marketing structure so the most senior marketeers are more closely connected to every aspect of our brands.”
Doukeris also noted that the distributors for the brand have suffered the most, saying, “This situation has impacted our people, especially our frontline workers, the delivery drivers, sales representatives, our wholesalers, bar owners and servers. We’ve been doing everything we can to support our teams, ensuring they are safe continuing to brew, package and – together with our wholesalers – deliver great beer to the market.”
He also said, that everything Bud Light and other Anheuser-Busch brands should do is be “about beer,” saying, “Everything we do should be about beer and should promote beer. It is an essential part of life’s meaningful moments, whether in sports, music or celebrations. These are moments that bring people together. And this is why I love beer.”
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