"This Was One Single Can"

It looks like after more than a month of the ongoing Dylan Mulvaney-Bud Light debacle, Anheuser and its parent have settled on a communications strategy: their market is overreacting. Per the Daily Wire:

Anheuser-Busch is trying to convince wholesalers that the Dylan Mulvaney controversy that has caused sales of Bud Light to plummet has been overblown.

The brewery sent a letter to wholesalers about the backlash to the trans-identifying influencer posting a TikTok video with a can of Bud Light that had Mulvaney’s face on it. In the video, Mulvaney celebrated 365 days of “being a woman.”

“This was one single can given to one social media influencer,” the letter declares. “It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement.”

It looks like the global conglomerate that owns Anheuser Busch has signed on to this version aS well. Per CNN:

Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michel Doukeris addressed the Bud Light controversy in the company’s earnings call Thursday, saying it’s “too early to have a full view” of the impact of sponsoring an Instagram post by transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

“The Bud Light volume decline in the US over the first three weeks of April, as publicly reported, would represent around 1% of our overall global volumes for that period,” Doukeris said on the call. He focused attention on the company’s global reach, saying that Bud Light is just one beer within its portfolio and it’s not changing the company’s full-year outlook.

. . . He also reiterated that the Mulvaney post wasn’t an ad campaign, and blasted the “misinformation” surrounding the sponsored post. Last week, A-B met with distributors to help them “dispel potential retailer misconception” about the Mulvaney ad.

A single can with Mulvaney’s face was given to her and was not for sale to the general public and not part of a broad campaign.

It's worth noting that figuratively speaking, CNN in its commentary is standing at M Doukeris's shoulder and nodding its head, a little like Dr Birx diligently endorsing Dr Fauci's every word back in the day. The American public is being misled by social media misinformation. Bud Light never had a campaign, it was just one can and one influencer who took things a little too far. Since then, we've made some adjustments. That's all! They're making such a big deal of this!

Several things strike at this stage. First, I agree with the Romanian YouTuber who says the Bud Light case will be a subject of classes in marketing schools for decades to come. Second, I agree with commentators who say this isn't about beer. It's certainly about the whole trans moral panic, but it's also become an example of corporate gaslighting.

The whole "one single can" routine mimics the stereotypical domestic dispute, "All I did was send her one single text. You're making such a big deal of this!"

The problem is that someone at Bud Light thought it would be a good idea to put Dylan Mulvaney's face on a Bud Light can, which is corporate property, in pursuit of a corporate policy, and send it to Mulvaney pursuant to a corporate agreement whereby he would endorse Bud Light. Per The UK Daily Mail,

The specifics of how the can fiasco erupted remain under wraps. The latest letter claims the Mulvaney can was the brainchild of an outside agency.

It is the first time the brewing giant has addressed the backlash in detail, after they were hit with a major dip in Bud Light sales following the paid partnership.

. . . Despite the company's attempts to disavow the connection, the video Mulvaney, 26, posted of herself drinking Bud Light at the start of April 2023 used the hashtag #budlightpartner.

It implies that she was paid for the partnership, despite the brewing giants now claiming that the beer can and social media posts were not meant to be 'for production or sale to the general public.'

So for now, Anheuser's position with the public at large is basically, "We never said that, and it didn't happen that way." We'll have to see how long that lasts -- it took them over a month to come up with it. Their problem is that they started by buying trouble, taking a visible corporate line on an issue they didn't need to address, when they were marketing a commodity for which consumers could easily change their preference. You don't want Bud Light? Great, you can drink Coors Light instead.

It was a "boycott" that demanded no sacrifice. The traditional idea of a boycott, like the Montgomery, AL bus boycott of 1955-56, involves some type of sacrifice, however minimal -- the African-Americans who refused to ride the Montgomery buses had to walk instead. The American colonials who boycotted English tea had to do without. But boycotting Bud Light simply means drinking another brand of beer, not having to forego anything.

Worse, as Saul Alinsky said, "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don't try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame."

Anheuser set itself up for this, it's been going on for more than a month, the boycott is the easiest thing in the world to sustain, and the public is having great fun doing it. So far, Anheuser's response has been to try to gaslight the whole country. I'm not sure if this is something Anheuser can survive, but the issue isn't just beer.