• by Aaron Paquette , Columnist, April 17, 2023

When trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a video to Instagram on April 1, it was the Reel heard ‘round the world. Dressed as Holly Golightly and carrying five cans of Bud Light, Mulvaney announced the brand’s March Madness promotion and showed a commemorative can honoring her “365 Days of Womanhood” while documenting her gender transition online. /

The fallout was almost instantaneous. Some critics faulted Mulvaney for perpetuating stereotypes by saying, “I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness, and I thought we were all just having a hectic month. But it turns out, it has something to do with sports. And I’m not sure exactly which sport, but either way, it’s a cause to celebrate.” This seemed particularly tone-deaf during a blockbuster Women’s NCAA Tournament, producing a championship game the next day that dominated the national discourse for a week.

Others were less constructive in their criticism. Two days later, Kid Rock posted a video of himself shooting cases of Bud Light and saying, “F*** Bud Light, and f*** Anheuser-Busch.” At press time, the video had been viewed nearly 1.8 million times on Instagram alone, receiving over 34,000 comments. Travis Tritt announced he was deleting Anheuser-Busch products from his tour hospitality rider, claiming that other artists were doing the same.

The trade publication Beer Business Daily reported that over Easter weekend, “Bud Light took a volume hit in some markets,” and that Midwestern, Southern and rural distributors were “spooked,” while cautioning that the holiday weekend made it hard to get a clear read on consumption patterns. The news drove down Anheuser-Busch stock by more than 2% last Monday, on unusually high trading volume.

Two days before Mulvaney dropped her video, Bud Light Marketing Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid stated on a podcast, “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 a 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.’”

However, it appears that in the short term, the campaign backfired spectacularly, alienating older, more conservative drinkers, without finding new Gen Z consumers to take their place.

For two weeks, Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch went silent on social media. Bud Light’s last Instagram post before going silent received over 16,000 comments, many of them variations on “Go woke, go broke.” The company put out a statement saying it works with hundreds of influencers and occasionally provides them with “unique commemorative cans." However, a Google search turns up only Mulvaney.

Finally, last Friday, Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Brendan Whitworth issued a semi-apology recommitting the company to “bringing people together over a beer,” but the New York Post called his statement “flatter than a day-old Bud Light.”

What lessons can brands learn from this PR debacle?

*Pick qualified spokespeople. When promoting a March Madness contest, select an influencer knowledgeable about sports. Or better yet, in an era of name, image and likeness (NIL) rights, choose a current or former college basketball player, such as breakout Iowa player Caitlin Clark, who is of legal drinking age, unlike breakout LSU champion Angel Reese.

*Promote causes over individuals. As Bud Light defenders have pointed out, many beer brands support LGBTQ+ causes. However, they generally promote a  feel-good “Pride” message rather than amplifying specific, often controversial, individuals.

*Defend yourself. If you’re going to redefine your brand around a controversial cause or messenger, get ready for the blowback, and prepare multiple lines of defense. Bud Light’s radio silence for two weeks allowed a controversy to fester, infuriating conservatives while exposing their spokesperson to ridicule.

After a three-week bar brawl, America sure could use a drink -- but for many, it won’t be Bud Light.