The Patriot Post® · Bud Light's Hard-Knocks Lesson

As far as corporate collapses go, few have been as spectacular as the stunning fall of Bud Light.

Back on April 1, the beer brand made what seemed like an inexplicable decision — sponsoring a social media influencer by the name of Dylan Mulvaney with custom-made Bud Light cans bearing his image. The problem is that Mulvaney pretends to be a woman so as to cash in with social media influence. Was it some sort of April Fools’ joke?

No; gone are the days of classic Bud Light commercials making fun of men dressing up like women.

The Mulvaney campaign was the very deliberate choice of former Bud Light VP of Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid. This real woman of genius explained in the typically irritating way of the Social Justice Warrior how the King of Beers was actually “in decline for a long time,” and it thus needed “young drinkers” wooed with a “truly inclusive,” “lighter,” and “brighter” marketing campaign. Rather than remaining “a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor,” she opined, “it was really important that we had another approach.”

In other words, Bud Light didn’t want its bigoted, flyover-country customers, hoping instead to win new, more enlightened ones.

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

Well, some companies might get away with being woke. Just not a beer with more or less a MAGA customer base. Notwithstanding Bud Light’s mealy-mouthed non-apology later in April followed by a hastily created country music ad, sales quickly tanked and have not yet recovered.

The second quarter was a total disaster for Bud Light. Anheuser-Busch InBev remains the world’s largest brewer, but that doesn’t make a quarterly loss of nearly $400 million easy to take. Year-over-year revenue dropped 10.5%; earnings fell 28.2%. Its market share fell more than five percentage points to 36.9%, and after decades in the top spot Bud Light is no longer the nation’s most popular beer. The beer is losing coveted shelf space and even received the “death star” in at least some Costco stores, which means those stores will no longer stock the brand. It’s down $27 billion in market value, and hundreds of white-collar workers were recently laid off.

That’ll give anyone bitter beer face.

“My ancestors would have rolled over in their graves,” said Billy Busch of the famous brewing family. “They loved this country because it is a free country and people are allowed to do what they want, but it was never meant to be on a beer can and pushed in people’s faces.”

Cheers to that.

For all his own wealth from more than a century of successful business, Busch understands the company’s customer base. “I think people who drink beer, I think they’re your common folk,” Busch continued. “I think they are the blue-collar worker who goes and works hard every single day. The last thing they want pushed down their throat or to be drinking is a beer can with that kind of message on it. I just don’t think that’s what they’re looking for. They want their beer to be truly American, truly patriotic, as it always has been. Truly, America’s beer, which Bud Light was and probably isn’t any longer.”

It seems at least a few people at the company might slowly be learning that lesson.

Following a survey of potential customers showing that most folks still view the brand positively if it’ll just knock off the woke junk and sell beer, Bud Light aims to do just that. “Beer is about relaxation,” Chief Executive Michel Doukeris said. “People do not want to enjoy their beer with a debate.” Another executive called the kerfuffle a “wake-up call.”

The question is whether anyone who quit buying the beer will come back. Unlike 30 years ago, there are now practically countless micro breweries with superior products. Why go back? Don’t get us wrong; it would be great to see Bud Light and a broad swath of other companies abandon the woke ship and get back to basics. But we also think Bud Light is a rather unique case.

Meanwhile, Mulvaney has parlayed the controversy into highly paid victim status. According to the Associated Press, “Mulvaney says she [sic] felt abandoned by Bud Light after facing ‘more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined’ over her [sic] partnership with the beer giant.”

Mulvaney huffed, “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion, than not hiring a trans person at all because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want.” He says Bud Light never again “reach[ed] out to me,” all while he’s been “ridiculed in public” and “scared to leave my house.”

Except for the Tony Awards the AP pictured him attending right above that quote. And except for those $40,000 speaking engagements on college campuses.

Life sure is hard for a victim.