Bud Light has posted its first tweet since the company’s ill-fated partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, as the company launches a new ad campaign and attempts to return to the “beer of easy enjoyment.”
The ad shows customers using beer cans to cool off in the summer heat as they quickly hop around on hot pavement with a cooler full of Bud Light following them.
With the text of Good Times by Chic in the background – the words popping: ‘These are the good times / Leave your cares behind’ – the ad shows its customers enjoying an easy summer holiday.
Crack a cold: we have an epic summer ahead of us. Including sock tan,” the company wrote on Twitter — its first tweet since April 14, just weeks after Mulvaney’s outburst.
Bud Light has seen its sales tank since the partnership and the famed brand of blue cans lost its crown as top selling beer.
Bud Light has launched a new ad campaign since teaming up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a disastrous partnership
The ad shows customers using beer cans to cool off in the summer heat as they quickly hop around on hot pavement with a cooler full of Bud Light following them
Crack a cold: we have an epic summer ahead of us. Sock tans included,” the company wrote on Twitter — its first tweet since April 14, just weeks after Mulvaney’s outburst
Bud Light’s vice president of marketing, Todd Allen, said in a statement to Bloomberg that he’s been hearing in the “past few weeks” that customers “want us to get back to what we do best: being the beer of easy enjoyment.”
“This new work is really about reaffirming the role Bud Light plays for our drinkers,” he said.
In addition, Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, is also hosting a series of country concerts this summer, according to Bloomberg. The lineup consists of Tyler Braden and Seaforth.
The company also reportedly teamed up with NFL players Travis Kelce, George Kittle and Dak Prescott to promote the brand ahead of the football season
Bud Light’s new campaign comes as the brand attempts to rebuild its stature since the controversy that saw the company’s sales plummet and Modelo become the top-selling beer.
Bud Light’s historic decline came after it teamed up with transgender influencer Mulvaney for a marketing campaign.
In the controversial promotion, 26-year-old Mulvaney posted a video of herself breaking open a Bud Light on her Instagram page on April 1.
She showed off the personalized can with her face on it – one of the many business freebies she gets and promotes to her millions of followers.
Bud Light’s Marketing Vice President, Todd Allen, said in a statement to Bloomberg that over the “past few weeks” he’s been hearing that customers “want us to get back to what we do best: being the beer of easy enjoyment.”
In addition, Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, is also hosting a series of country concerts this summer, according to Bloomberg. The lineup consists of Tyler Braden and Seaforth
Bud Light was accused of alienating their traditional customer base by partnering with Mulvaney, which led many conservatives – including Kid Rock – to boycott the brand.
Conservatives pushed ahead with the boycott, leading the Belgium-based brewer to send two executives responsible for the partnership — Alissa Heinerscheid, its vice president of marketing, and her boss, Daniel Blake — on furlough in April.
Heinerscheid was hired in June 2022 to overhaul Bud Light’s marketing with a vision to refresh its image, while Blake spent nearly nine years at Anheuser-Busch.
Heinerscheid’s short-lived tenure reportedly included a critically acclaimed Super Bowl ad featuring Miles Teller and his wife Keleigh Sperry, as well as “the Bud Light Carry” campaign in which a woman carried a round of beer to a table of friends without spilling a drop . .
Those ads, statements by the beer brand revealed, were part of Heinerscheid’s vision to make the brand more female-friendly — something she described as a “passion point” just a few months ago.
But that vision was quickly shattered on April 3 when the brand partnered with Mulvaney, a controversial trans activist with a massive social media following, which proved to be a step too far for Bud Light’s loyal customers.
After Anheuser-Busch attempted to distance itself from the Mulvaney promotion, Bud Light also faced backlash from the opposite direction, with pro-LGBTQ groups accusing the company of abandoning the transgender influencer.
Sales of the beer fell 26.8 percent in the week ending June 10, the worst week-over-week performance since the ad campaign in early April resulted in a rapid backlash.
According to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ, it’s a deeper drop from the week ending June 3, which saw a 24.4 percent drop. The new low beats the previous low — a drop of nearly 26 percent — for the week ending May 25.
Anheuser-Busch’s other U.S. brands — including Budweiser, Michelob Ultra and Natural Light — have also experienced significant sales declines since the controversy. Bud is down 10 percent, while Natty Light and Michelob are down 2.3 and 2.4 percent, respectively.
Sales of the beer fell 26.8 percent in the week ending June 10, the worst week-over-week performance since the ad campaign in early April resulted in a rapid backlash
The April 1 partnership with Mulvaney sparked outrage in the US and sparked boycotts that lasted for weeks
Anson Frericks (pictured) served as president of sales and distribution at Anheuser-Busch for more than a decade. He said the company “underestimated” the importance of holding onto the partnership with Mulvaney
Anheuser-Busch’s former sales director has said the company is suffering because it “politicized” Bud Light – alienating customers on the right and left.
His comments come nearly three months after a partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney fell through, costing the company $27 billion in value at one point.
Anson Frericks, who served as president of sales and distribution for Anheuser-Busch for more than a decade, told CNBC the company “underestimated” the importance of reacting quickly with a clear reaction after the backlash that followed.
“Anheuser-Busch has lost track of who its customer is,” said Frericks, who left his position at the company and co-founded Ohio-based asset management firm Strive.
“A brand like Bud Light is a brand that has never been political, but now it’s being shunned by customers on the right, who see this partnership as a very politicized position they’ve taken, and also by customers on the left who don’t doing. “I don’t feel supported in the midst of the backlash,” he said.