Senator Ted Cruz is accusing Bud Light of concealing information about the company’s partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney — claiming the collaboration began months earlier than the beer giant has admitted and also violated rules prohibiting the marketing of alcohol to minors, most importantly audience of the controversial influencer, prevented .
The Texas senator sent a memo Wednesday night first obtained by DailyMail.com to the Beer Institute’s Code Compliance Review Board (CCRB), showing how the company clearly violated rules prohibiting marketing to minors under the legal age for alcohol consumption aged 21.
The memo serves as an update to a letter Cruz wrote last month with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., to Brendan Whitworth — who is both Anheuser-Busch’s U.S. CEO and president of Beer Institute, which studies the beer industry and sets guidelines. fixed for advertisements.
Since their initial May 17 correspondence, the senators say Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, would not provide the requested documents and has concealed the true origins and nature of the partnership with the controversial social media influencer.
Mulvaney’s post on April 1 didn’t have proper guardrails on Instagram to prevent minors from accessing the content, says Cruz
A Feb. 11 post discounted the company’s story that they only worked with Mulvaney on one isolated incident
Since April, the partnership has cost the company billions in revenue and continues to be boycotted by tens of millions of former consumers.
Specifically, Cruz says in the memo that the company’s earnings call statement dated May 4, 2023, which promised the partnership with Mulvaney was “one can, one influencer, one post, not a campaign,” is blatantly false.
“In fact, Anheuser-Busch has hired Mulvaney several times to advertise and market Bud Light,” he replies in the memo.
The senator is referring to a message dated February 11, 2023 — not mentioned in his original May 17 letter to the CCRB — where he says he specifically rejects the company’s story that they only worked with Mulvaney on one isolated incident.
“On February 11, 2023, Mulvaney posted a video to Instagram with the caption #budlightpartner,” he writes in the memo.
“The video showed Mulvaney dancing in a bathtub with an open can of Bud Light, a stack of Bud Light cans in the background.”
The February post came before the April 1 post of Mulvaney celebrating March Madness, dressed as Audrey Hepburn and posted a personalized version of the Bud Light can, also tagged “#budlightpartner.”
Another issue that Cruz disagrees with is the apparent lack of enforcement by the company to establish guardrails in place on Instagram to prevent minors from accessing Mulvaney’s alcohol-related content.
According to Meta, Instagram requires creators to “block all US users under the age of 21 from viewing branded content that promotes or references alcohol.”
Cruz points to multiple occasions when Bud Light and Mulvaney failed to reach the “age gate” — making the content viewable by teens and other kids under 21, including the April 1 post.
Mulvaney’s social media is featured in posts related to children’s characters and themes, including “Eloise” and others
Cruz says that because Mulvaney has a “special appeal” to younger kids below the drinking age, the lack of strict age restriction is especially concerning
Content often focuses on promoting “childhood dreams” and other youth themes through a “Days of Girlhood” video series
Cruz says that because Mulvaney has a “particular appeal” to younger kids below drinking age, the lack of a strict age restriction is particularly concerning.
Mulvaney’s social media has posts about children’s characters and themes, including “Eloise,” “Barbie,” and others. Content often focuses on promoting “childhood dreams” and other youth themes through a “Days of Girlhood” video series.
The influencer called TikTok, Mulvaney’s primary social media platform, a “kids app” and constantly posts content aimed at “kids and teens.”
The activists also admitted that “much of my audience is a younger demographic” in a March 13 appearance on the “Drew Barrymore Show.”
“26-year-old Mulvaney has a young fan base, uses themes that are especially appealing to girls and young teens, and is most easily recognized by young people, especially those on TikTok, Instagram, and other forms of social media,” Cruz writes.
The TikTok influencer’s audience clearly indicates that posts violate the Beer Institute’s advertising code because “less than 73.6% of the expected audience was of legal drinking age,” the senator continues.
The institute has established guidelines that require adults over the age of 21 to make up at least 73.6 percent of an ad’s target audience.
An aide to the Senate Commerce Committee told DailyMail.com that Bud Light clearly “contradicted” the Beer Institute’s established marketing code.
‘Sen. Cruz is asking the CCRB to determine that Anheuser-Busch’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney — and specifically the February 11, 2023 and April 1, 2023 Instagram posts — violated the ad code’s ban on marketing to minors ‘ the memo concludes.
The CCRB will ultimately decide whether Bud Light has violated industry standards in marketing and impose any fines on the company.
Cruz is also still pushing for an independent congressional oversight investigation.
DailyMail.com reached out to the Beer Institute for comment.