Last week, one of Bud Light’s influencer partnerships escaped from it’s narrow lane and landed on Fox News. Bud Light had hired Dylan Mulvaney, a legitimate star with many promotional relationships including Kate Spade and Instacart. She has interviewed President Biden, has been featured on TV talk shows and awards presentations, and has starred in big theater productions like The Book of Mormon. Since March 2022, she has been sharing her gender transition on Tik Tok under the series titled “Days of Girlhood”.
On April 1st, Dylan released a promotional video for Bud Light and the trolls saw someone they could easily abuse. Their hatefires must have been burning low and Dylan and Bud Light were handy fuel.
When marketing a beverage, or any consumer product, the influencer channel is steadily gaining importance. Marketing organizations have entire teams working to align with personalities to reach their followers. An influencer like Dylan Mulvaney with about 10 million followers is a medium sized player.
Occasionally, one of these narrow segmented messages jumps out of it’s intended mini universe and explodes onto the big media screen. It is a wild ride for the creators, who may have wished that one of their campaigns would “blow up” everyone’s phones. But may not have envisioned how it would happen in real life.
It seems that Bud Light is in this situation right now. The anti-wokers are driving steamrollers over piles of Bud Light, and prognosticating about why AB Inbev’s stock is down 5% since this dust up started. The marketers at Bud Light are smart not to engage the bullies. AB Inbev has 400 beer brands, so when the torch and pitchfork crowd goes back to the store to replace the beer they shot with their AKs – they may just be buying other AB Inbev products!
Since only one sixth of AB Inbev’s global business is in North America, any change in sales volume from this fracas is unlikely to make a dent in their financial performance.
Soon enough the haters will be shooting at someone else, and Bud Light will resume their campaigns as intended.
Links and Resources
About Dylan Mulvaney: https://www.inquirer.com/news/bud-light-transgender-can-dylan-mulvaney-boycott-20230411.html
More about Dylan Mulvaney: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/bud-light-ad-trans-dylan-mulvaney-rcna79165
More about Dylan Mulvaney: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/dylan-mulvaney-nike-ad-bud-light-vp-b2318234.html
About Kid Rock: https://www.newsweek.com/kid-rock-mocked-photo-drinking-bud-light-drag-queen-1793067
About Influencers: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-social-media-influencers/475776/#close
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