Bud Light’s under-fire marketing VP ‘takes LEAVE OF ABSENCE’ after Dylan Mulvaney controversy
Bud Light’s marketing manager, whose team oversaw the disastrous partnership with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney, took a leave of absence on Friday, according to a report.
Alice Heinerscheid was hired to overhaul Bud Light’s marketing in June 2022 with a vision to refresh its image.
But that took a disastrous turn on April 1 when the partnership with Mulvaney was announced, triggering a boycott and knocking $6 billion off the company’s value.
Heinerscheid will be replaced by the vice president of global marketing for Budweiser, Todd Allen, according to Ad Age.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Bud Light for comment.
Alissa Heinerscheid, the brand’s vice president of marketing, has taken a leave of absence, according to a report released Friday
The 26-year-old transgender activist announced the partnership in a now-viral post with the hashtag “#budlightpartner” and a caption touting the cans as her “most prized possession.”
The Heinerscheid team was responsible for Bud Light’s critically acclaimed Super Bowl commercial starring Miles Teller and his wife Keleigh Sperry, and “the Bud Light Carry” commercial featuring a woman carrying a round of beer to a table of friends without spilling a drop.
Those ads were part of Heinerscheid’s vision to make the brand more female-friendly — something she describes as a “passion point.”
But that vision was quickly cut short on April 3 with the brand’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a controversial trans activist with a massive social media following, proved to be a step too far for Bud Light’s loyal customers.
Kid Rock was one of the first to criticize the partnership and lead a boycott, with other conservative consumers, distributors and suppliers following suit.
Heinerscheid has not commented on the scandal.
A graduate of Wharton Business School, she has been hailed in interviews as the first woman to “lead” Bud Light in its 41-year history.
On March 30, in an interview with the Make Yourself at Home podcast, she talked about her strategy for moving beyond Bud Light’s “fratty” reputation and embracing inclusiveness to attract a young generation of drinkers.
‘I am a business woman. I clearly had work to do when I acquired Bud Light, and it was this brand that is in decline,” she said.
“It has been in decline for a long time. And if we don’t attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there is no future for Bud Light.
“So I had this super clear mandate. It’s like we need to develop this incredibly iconic brand and take it to the next level.
What does evolve and elevate mean? It means inclusiveness. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that is truly inclusive and that feels lighter, brighter and different. And appeals to women and men.
During a podcast appearance last month, days before the Mulvaney partnership was announced, Heinerscheid said Bud Light was on the wane when she took over last summer, but planned to right the ship in the coming months.
And representation. Is it kind of the heart of evolution? You need to see people who mirror you in the work.
And we had a hangover. I mean, Bud Light had been kind of an antics, a kind of callous humor, and it was really important that we had a different approach,” she said.
In an earlier interview with Forbes, she gave the same mandate.
“As the first woman to lead the world’s largest beer brand, it’s a great opportunity to really evolve Bud Light, this brand I love, and take it to the next level.
“This campaign is meant to feel different, to be lighter and brighter, with confidence and appeal, and it’s very important to depict real people and real places,” she said.
“What I need to do to help this brand evolve… this is my passion point.”
Since taking the gig in July, Heinerscheid has already rolled out several ads as part of an effort to empower women — one of which features a dancing Miles Teller and his wife
This desire was felt in a February commercial titled “The Bud Light Carry,” in which a female protagonist, after buying her friends a round of beer, successfully carried the glasses to her friends without spilling a drop.
Prior to her current role, Heinerscheid served as an associate brand manager for Listerine, and then spent seven months leading the internal office of Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch.
During that time, the marketing specialist claims to have created the current “internal” of the company influencer agency’, an approach that Bud Light now seems to favor with its decision to market through figures like Mulvaney.
In an interview with New York PR publication Provoke Media last year, Heinerscheid praised companies like Nike for inclusive, “culturally relevant campaigns” featuring black athletes, while praising former employer General Mills for its more “healthy and heartfelt” approach to advertising.
“I’ve always been impressed with how culturally relevant and impactful the marketing is for Nike,” she told the outlet in November after being named one of the 25 US Innovators of the Year.
“Even as a parent,” she added, “there’s just something so wholesome and heartfelt about what General Mills does.”
That said, despite advocating progressive ideals, the New Yorker is a registered Republican, according to public records updated in 2016, and has a family of three young children.
She married her husband Henry Charles Heinerscheid, a Boston-based consultant at Tapestry Networks, in 2011.
She had worked with him for five years after graduating from Harvard, where she studied English.
Their marriage was announced in May 2011 by the New York Times.
She married her husband Henry Charles Heinerscheid, a consultant in Boston at Tapestry Networks, in 2011 after working with him as a senior associate for five years. She left later that year to pursue a masters degree in marketing
She then enrolled in a marketing masters program for $60,000 a year at Wharton, finishing in 2013.
She has since held positions at Cheerio’s, Listerine, and Anheuser-Busch.
Mulvaney – a transgender woman living during the pandemic became known on TikTok for her ‘days of girlhood’ series – has over 10.8 million followers on the platform.
The Mulvaney controversy started on April 3 when Bud Light sent her customized looks with her face. The gift served as the start of the parties’ since-confirmed collaboration, further confirmed by a subsequent post from Mulvaney, in which she appeared naked to her followers in a bathtub while drinking a Bud Light beer.
In the turmoil that followed, Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, issued a statement supporting the brand’s decision to partner with Mulvaney, whose videos follow her journey.
“Anheuser-Busch partners with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across different demographics,” the representative said.
It added: ‘From time to time we produce unique commemorative tins for fans and for brand influencers, such as Mulvaney. This commemorative tin was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public.”
Their doubling only infuriated the irate customers even more.
Onlookers are now criticizing the maneuver as a blatant publicity grab, amid the recent trend that companies’awake’ to improve their results.