I’m thinking the latest move from the Anheuser-Busch conglomerate isn’t going to do the job for them.
Bud Light has tanked its brand by teaming up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney and effectively endorsing his “365 Days of Being a Girl” claim. Mulvaney has pretended to be a little girl and mocked women with his actions. But that didn’t seem to deter Bud Light from issuing a can recognizing Mulvaney’s “achievement.”
The boycott has gotten so bad for Bud Light, they’re even offering to essentially give beer away for free just so they can try to salvage some of their sales numbers over the Memorial Day weekend. But they were even offering to buy back some of the beer from wholesalers and ales are down in all regions of the country. Anheuser-Busch’s stock has also taken a serious tumble. The controversy has even affected other Anheuser-Busch brands beyond Bud Light.
That last point may explain Budweiser’s latest move. They’re teaming up with Harley-Davidson for an ad and a limited edition can that celebrates the iconic motorcycle brand. It features dudes working on a Harley and then having beers as a narrator intones about “grit and resilience.”
“The greatest legacies are built with grit and resilience, one detail at a time. Limited edition Budweiser Harley-Davidson cans – for those who give everything to their craft. This Bud’s for you.”
More like this “Dud’s” for you, as some observed. It’s also a bit of a stereotype, which means that’s how they think of people. It’s like they went to the ad guys and said, “What can we do to recover and appeal to dudes who used to drink our beer?”
Is this the best thought that they could come up with? Do they think that this is the way to win back their customers? That people are going to be buffaloed by such efforts? They must think so since they keep trying to pull out the ads like this. This is like when they put out a “countrified ad,” thinking throwing country music out there would do the trick. The effort to pander is silly. It’s a shallow assessment of what they think of their former customers while continuing not to get why people are disturbed or directly addressing the elephant in the room. What they should have done from the beginning is listen to the customers and hear why they were disturbed.
Now, if you buy Bud Light, people think it means you’re endorsing Mulvaney or getting involved in politics. Most people when they buy beer just want to have a cold one — they don’t want it with a side of controversy, which is why it’s so bad for companies to wade into political wars.
At this point, even if they did address the problem because they haven’t for so long and tried all these various tactics, I don’t think anyone would take it as a real effort. This move probably also isn’t going to help Harley much, to team up with Bud when it’s in the middle of a debacle.
Bud keeps trying, but what they seem to be trying to do is just dig that hole deeper.