Bud Light parent takes Creative Marketer of the Year award at ‘Oscars for advertising’

It takes a lot of creativity to lose $27 billion.

On Monday, Anheuser-Busch’s chief marketing officer accepted an award for “Creative Marketer of the Year,” a couple of months after Bud Light’s disastrous partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Marcel Marcondes accepted the prize at the Cannes Lions, the advertising industry’s biggest annual event popularly dubbed “the Oscars for advertising,” but acknowledged as a humbling mistake the Bud Light backlash that had cost the company tens of billions in market-cap value.

“In times like this, when things get divisive and controversial so easily, I think it’s an important wake-up call to all of us marketers first of all to be very humble,” he said.

Companies should be “really reminding ourselves of what we should do best every day, which is to really understand our consumers,” he said.

The prize had been announced before the Mulvaney flap, but was only awarded Monday and, according to Ad Age, the incongruity of Anheuser-Busch accepting a marketing prize was the first topic Mr. Marcondes addressed.

Understanding consumers means “to really celebrate and appreciate every consumer that loves our brands — but in a way that can make them be together, not apart,” Mr. Marcondes said.

The difficulty of that tightrope is reflected in the sequence of the Bud Light flap, which began with conservative outrage but later grew to include liberal and LGBTQ anger at the company for perceived buckling to the first backlash.

Bud Light lost its decades-held status as the top-selling beer in the U.S. as of last week.

Mr. Marcondes said Bud Light “is all about bringing people together” and predicted a rebound.

“That’s what we all, as a team, will be doing moving forward as a group. That’s what leaders do. Bud Light is coming back. It’s going all around the country, reconnecting with consumers, moving forward. That’s what you can expect from Bud Light in the U.S.” he said.