Don’t end the Bud Light boycott
Conservatives are constantly complaining about the left’s domination of culture, but they rarely take the actions necessary to make a difference. Corporate executives are acutely aware that offending progressive sensibilities can quickly end their careers, while offending the right carries little or no consequence. I can remember dozens of proposed conservative boycotts that folded immediately and had no effect. That’s why the Bud Light boycott was so shocking. Anheuser-Busch suffered serious financial losses that sent its stock tumbling and its executives running for cover.
Yet the company never apologized for its actions, which centered around using a transgender influencer to promote its products. Now Budweiser believes enough time has passed and is attempting to buy its way back into the hearts and minds of conservatives by paying for influential endorsements.
Don’t believe it. Conservatives must avoid snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and hold the line against a company that holds them in contempt.
Bud Light is a brand built almost entirely on its popularity among the working class and red America. It is the default beer of backyard barbecues, football games, and country music concerts. No trendy urbanite or socially conscious activist would be caught dead drinking Bud Light. It is cheap beer for people who are looking to have a good time and do not care about signaling their social status. Anheuser-Busch is perfectly aware of the dynamic and has made billions of dollars by leaning into this image. Its advertisements are not aimed at progressive college professors or New York Times readers. They are aimed squarely at Joe Sixpack.
While every company feels compelled to advance the progressive agenda due to the left’s ideological dominance, Anheuser-Busch was aware that its customers were not fans.
After a trans shooter killed six people, including three children, at a Christian school in Nashville earlier this year, it would have made sense to dial back the woke propaganda and stick with endorsements from football players and country musicians. Instead, Bud Light executives decided to slap a picture of Dylan Mulvaney on the side of their beer cans.
The reaction was incredible.
Overnight a beer that had once been ubiquitous in red America suddenly became a punch line. Guys would laugh at anyone who ordered “the trans beer” at the bar, and Anheuser-Busch lost $27 billion in market value.
Despite these incredible losses, Anheuser-Busch refused to apologize to its customers. The company shuffled around a few marketing executives and released an empty statement about “getting back to basics.” But executives also knew any sign of backpedaling would be seen as a betrayal of the progressive cause. Bud Light started running more ads with guys in pickup trucks but refused to side with its customers over the woke mob, and conservatives refused to forgive. The insincere pandering and vague statements were insufficient, and the brand continued to suffer.