Following Bud Light’s disastrous collaboration with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney last year, which led to a powerful boycott that tanked sales and shareholder value, the beer maker is trying to recover lost ground. Bud Light recently launched a new advertisement featuring popular comedian Shane Gillis, which seeks to appeal to ordinary Americans.
“To Di For” podcast host Kinsey Schofield recently appeared on Sky News, where she acknowledged that while the move from Bud Light was a step in the right direction for the company, it may be “too little, too late.” When asked if Bud Light’s former customers are receiving the new ad well and returning to the beer, Schofield said, “Unfortunately, the answer is no.”
However, she noted that “the content is great, but their customers, our former customers, are asking, why can’t they apologize?” She added, “I mean, 6 million people have viewed that ad alone from one tweet. But the reaction is not all positive. Some are saying, you know, why couldn’t you have responded with humor from the start?”
She emphasized, “Translation, too little too late. Others are asking if they are allergic to apologies. The execution was great. Shane was the right personality, but it’s going to take some time for these people to come back around.” Sky News host Rita Panahi then said, “Oh, absolutely. And the parent company has lost more than a billion dollars, they just showed you, when you go, woke you can go broke.”
The latest commercial with Gillis portrays the comedian as a regular guy meant to portray a Bud Light drinker in the filming of an advertisement for the beer. However, he got mixed up in a strange commercial with artsy, avant-garde undertones. The ad then cuts to the setting Shane should’ve been in, where the actor for the weird commercial was eating wings and drinking Bud Light at a bar, having a fantastic time.
The American Tribune reported extensively on the Bud Light controversy throughout 2023, during which sales and share prices plummeted. Vice President of Marketing at Bud Light Alissa Heinerscheid took the blame for the partnership with Mulvaney with her initiatives to make the brand more inclusive. She slammed the company’s brand image as “fratty” and “out of touch,” suggesting that Bud Light should revamp its brand image.
Watch Schofield’s commentary below:
Heinerscheid said, “I’m a businesswoman. I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light and it was, this brand is in decline. It’s been in decline for a really long time. And if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light. So I had this super clear mandate, like we need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand and my what I brought to that was a belief in okay, what is what are we what does evolve and elevate mean? It means inclusivity it means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men and representation is it sort of the heart of evolution, you got to see people who reflect you in the work and we have a hangover. I mean, Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty. Kind of out of touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.”
Watch the latest Bud Light commercial below:
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