But they ARE the exact opposite of one another. LGBTQ+ citizens are patriotic too, you know. Advertising that you recognize them to be equal human beings and citizens, and then frantically changing your advertising to say ‘no, really, only the America valued by white Christian nationalists matters’ is the literal definition of the term “back tracking”.
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The majority of Americans also oppose laws that target trans people. That’s not the point. The point is that the party which does not have majority support is shoving through bigoted laws and are doing so with the help of the stacked courts. They are also riling up militias and other far right groups to go after people they do not like.
And yes, this was pandering, as that’s pretty much what advertising is built on.
But far too many of them are perfectly happy to throw any minority group under the bus, if it means that their lives improve just a bit…
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I don’t see anything in the ad that explicitly backpedals from cooperation with trans people or grovels. Honestly, it looks like a generic beer ad, maybe with even more rural and outdoorsy looking people than average. And I honestly hope they never explicitly backpedal. For all the talk on the right about how their stock is “tanking,” it lost a whole three bucks per share after the whining began, and it’s still way above its 52-week low. If this is the worst consequence of defying the MAGA masses, Anheuser-Busch has nothing to fear.
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ISTR that the brand is currently owned by InBev, a Belgian company.
There’s no sign that they’re backtracking. The deal with Mulvaney is still in place as far as I know, their PR doesn’t seem to backing down on the subject. Willing to bet they’ll still fund the hell out of Pride events in a month and half.
The ad is pretty standard Bud Heavy yay America shit. I don’t see any reason to think it’s rushed or related to the backlash, it could have just been pulled out of a deep backlog of such things. It’s no more embarrassing than usual. The statement that came out around the same time says pretty much nothing besides “America”.
It also seems to mostly be right wing new sources painting this as embarrassing and a capitulation.
Not so much. Beer sales in general are shrinking rapidly. And American Macro lagers are the hardest hit. Bud and Bud Light sales have been shrinking for 10ish years. The only growth markets in beer right now, including for Macro beers are in non-white communities, the LGBTQ community and Women. The only growing Macro brand is Michelob Ultra, also an AB product. And with growth heavily driven by Women and the Queer community.
Bud needs to wave something shiny to distract the politicians while they double down on making their beer as gay as possible.
I don’t think they did. They’ve been running all these thing concurrently for years. The right just noticed now. They were literally putting out cans that said “America The Beer”, while they funded Pride Parades and put rainbow Bud Light cans out a few years back.
They sold different packages into different accounts and regions, while running different ads in different markets.
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They’ll buy what they’re told to buy and drink what they’re told to drink
Their only loyalty is to Fox News
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Let me tell you a story about a beer…Remember, this is a story bigger than beer. This is the story of the American spirit (of a company groveling to its base consumers because they accidentally offended them)
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What campaign?
They sent a pack of custom cans to one trans woman so she would do some tik toks and plug their product to 10 million people. That isn’t really much of a campaign. If it wasn’t for this conservative hissy fit, I’d never know about it. Most people wouldn’t, other than the specific audience they were targeting.
And most likely, they had this ad in the post in the works for awhile. Maybe they hustled and whipped this out quick, but it really doesn’t look any different than a bunch of other commercials. Using the Clydesdale and patriotic imagery has been a staple, especially for around the Super Bowl or 4th of July.
They want everyone to drink their “beer”. Straight people, gay people, young people, old people, red necks, high falutin urbanites, frat and sorority people, people who root for the sports team, people who root for that other sports team, etc etc etc. The internet allows for targeted advertising, vs TV where you have to have just a broad, over all appeal. Don’t like the Mulvaney ad? It wasn’t for you, you weren’t supposed to see it. You were supposed to see the other ads targeted at your demographic.
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I gotta say, don’t think it’s humiliating, or back peddling or groveling or any other things like that.
It’s just corporate America wanting to sell as much product as possible because if they sell one less can of beer or one less dollar of any product wall street considers them a failure and their stock tanks and then investors panic and start selling and tanking all the stocks in my retirement fund and then I panic and don’t buy a new washing machine so the washing machine company lays off half thier staff and it never ends all because of the ridiculous notion that companies must grow every quarter instead of just being profitable.
The whole thing drives me nuts.
Fucking “Liberals”…
ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.
-Phil Occhs
*From
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If only this were true, we wouldn’t have to sit through the prospect of another Trump presidential run. I don’t think they’re paying close enough attention.
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Today I went in the gas station just to buy the gayest beer I could find, which was a tall Bud Light Blood Orange Hard Seltzer 8%.
It was fucking nasty.
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That anti woke beer got problems. Is there any conservative cause that’s not some sort of grift? Guess he’s not shipping in May unless shipping refunds counts.
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