OPINION:
Bud Light, facing massive consumer backlash for its brand partnership with pretend woman Dylan Mulvaney, has announced a redesign that drapes its cans in camouflage print — an apparent tribute to the “Folds of Honor” charity, which benefits the children of fallen and disabled military service members.
Good charity.
Bogus public relations move.
It not only smells of desperation. It stinks of patronization.
Bud Light can color as many cans camouflage as it wants — the company can give away as many free American flags, cigars and shot glasses with shadow designs of AR-15s as it wants — Anheuser-Busch can portray as many manly man images of masculinity and patriotism as it wants — but the end result will be the same.
“Bud Light is the Queer Beer. Pass it along,” as one Twitter poster wrote.
Ouch.
But that’s what happens when a company with a product that’s blatantly aimed at the patriotic male market goes LGBTQ.
You get Kid Rock shooting up the beer cans. You get all of Kid Rock’s fans, and all of country music’s fans, figuratively following suit.
In April, ABC reported this: “Bud Light sales plummet 17% in dollars, 21% in volume.”
Well, those were the good old days.
By May, the headlines were more like this: “Bud Light is at risk of losing its status as the top-selling beer in the US, industry expert says, as sales tumble 26% amid Dylan Mulvaney backlash,” The Daily Mail wrote.
The company is scrambling for a fix. More to the truth, the company is gasping and splashing for a life preserver.
It’s one thing to lose money, then shift gears with the marketing to try and recoup the losses. It’s another thing to expect that this shifting of marketing dollars will erase memories. Or mocking.
Social media is on fire with satirical, snarky, sarcastic condemnations of Bud Light — the now-dubbed “queer beer.”
There’s the meme of two men hugging above a “Beer For Queers” tagline and the accompanying Twitter poster’s remark, “Yep that’s exactly what it is.”
There’s the tweeted photo of a dozen or so upside-down Bud Light cans in a kitchen sink along with the poster’s comment: “The day ‘Bud Light’ went away! They went from the ‘King of Beers’ to the ‘King of Queers.’ … Here is where my ‘Bud Light’ went.”
There’s the video of the voice-over male — a voice made famous with these similar “We salute you” ad campaigns — that says, “Today, we salute you, Mr. Budweiser head-of-marketing guy. Only you could take a beer and make it queer. Twenty years of amazing ad campaigns — and this is where we end up. [Cue background singers: ‘Not gonna buy it.’] What the [fff-sound] were you thinking.”
There’s the video of a comedic singer, slinging lines like this: “Bud Light, the liberal beer, so drink it if you’re ‘sis’ or if you’re queer, baby.”
There’s the video with the warning tag that “this is what happens when you drink Queer Beer Bud Light” — after which a man with facial hair sips a Bud Light, pulls the can away and wonders aloud, “What’s everybody b—ing about” — but then he lowers the can only to discover he’s been changed into a woman.
Those are but a few. Social media hasn’t had this much fun since — well, never.
Anheuser-Busch has been trotting out marketing campaigns, post-Mulvaney-the-man-who-pretends-to-be-a-woman debacle, that include spirited waves of the American flag and the company’s signature Clydesdale horses, prancing up a patriotic storm. But the efforts have fallen flat. So, too, the company’s quasi-apology to its customers and the subsequent “departure” of its Mulvaney marketing brainiacs. So now the focus is on camouflage cans and feel-good, for-the-kids military charity. But it’s all in naught.
Nothing will slow the fall of Bud Light at this point.
Bud Light, the “queer beer,” is a tag that’s pure marketing genius — it’s short, it’s snappy, it’s rhythmic and it rhymes. It makes for great social media fodder. It’s laugh after laugh after laugh. It’s offensive, but not to the core consumer Bud Light once captured; it’s offensive enough, but not so offensive that preachers and grandmas and little kids couldn’t hear or watch or read — and laugh. It’s the golden nugget of marketing buzzes.
But Bud’s got camo? Bud’s bringing in the big camouflage guns?
Another tweet: “Who’s still drinking Bud Light anyway? But you can get Queer Beer for free … yippeee!”
Sorry, Anheuser. Color the cans however it suits. “Queer beer” is here to stay.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
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