The timing couldn’t possibly have been worse. On Monday, the chief marketing officer of Anheuser-Busch, Marcel Marcondes, was in the south of France to accept an award. The beer giant was named “Creative Marketer of the Year” at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, an international conference known as the Oscars for the adverting industry,” which gives awards for effective advertising and marketing campaigns. Marcondes was there to receive the accolades of his peers just as Anheuser-Busch’s premier brand, Bud Light, suffered its worst weekly drop in sales amid a months-long nosedive after featuring the insufferable trans poster boy Dylan Mulvaney. Well, yeah, you could call that creative marketing.
To be sure, the Cannes Lions festival isn’t run by idiots. They made the decision to give Anheuser-Busch the award before Bud Light brought on Mulvaney. However, no one could say that these savvy advertising execs can turn on a dime. It has now been nearly three months since Bud Light put Mulvaney’s cheesy mug on a can and he got into a bubble bath surrounded by Bud Light cans.
Bud Light’s sales have been in an epic nosedive virtually from the moment the Bud Light can featuring Mulvaney (which red-faced Anheuser-Busch top dogs insist was a one-off); couldn’t Cannes Lions have decided that this was not the best year to dub Anehuser-Busch the “Creative Marketer of the Year”? Or couldn’t Marcondes, faced with the unprecedented self-destruction of his principal product by means of a spectacularly tone-deaf marketing ploy, have graciously declined the award and maintained a discreet silence?
Marcondes did strike a self-effacing note in his acceptance speech: “In times like this, when things get divisive and controversial so easily, I think it’s an important wake-up call to all of us marketers first of all to be very humble.” Warming to his aw-shucks role, he continued: “That’s what we’re doing, being very humble, and really reminding ourselves of what we should do best every day, which is to really understand our consumers.”
Well, no. Bud Light has not exactly recovered its footing after the Mulvaney fiasco. It has just returned to Twitter with a new ad that, as PJM’s Paula Bolyard noted on Thursday, is devoted to “making fun of clumsy white dudes.” Great move, Marcondes! More creative marketing! That’s sure to bring back all the patriots who were revolted by Mulvaney and offended by Anheuser-Busch joining in the Left’s all-out push to force them to accept his delusion and insanity. The Bud Light drinkers in the new ad are falling all over themselves, walking around with pale ankles from wearing socks, and the like.
Bud Light returns to Twitter with spot making fun of clumsy white dudes. https://t.co/GX05rBImTA
— Paula Bolyard (@pbolyard) June 22, 2023
It’s supposed to be cute, but it comes off once again as more of the same arrogance and elitism that led to the hiring of Mulvaney in the first place: sophisticated urban Leftists demonstrate their contempt for the ordinary American working men who used to drink Bud Light and who have the poor taste as to fail to make sure to take off their socks and get a tan on their lower legs and feet. Yet at Cannes, Marcondes said he intended to “really celebrate and appreciate every consumer that loves our brands — but in a way that can make them be together, not apart.”
Yeah, sure, buddy. It never fails: whenever Leftists start talking about togetherness and unity, they mean the total capitulation of patriots and their forced acceptance of the Left’s agenda. Anything less than this would be “divisive.” So will Marcondes bring Mulvaney back? Will Dylan soon be cavorting on video with the stupid pale-ankles white guys, as they all enjoy Bud Light?
Related: Could It Be That Anheuser-Busch Tanked Bud Light ON PURPOSE?
That’s not likely, but given Anheuser-Busch’s continued contempt for its customer base, expect Bud Light’s sales to continue to fall. The UK’s Daily Mail reported Tuesday that “Bud Light has suffered its worst weekly sales drop following its disastrous partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The beer’s sales dropped 26.8 percent for the week ending June 10, the worst week-on-week performance since its early April advertising campaign resulted in a swift backlash.” This was also “a deeper drop from the week ending on June 3, which saw a 24.4 percent drop.”
Yet even amid all this, Anheuser-Busch seems to have learned nothing. It looks as if wokeism is an exceedingly difficult drug to kick. But Anheuser-Busch is also Exhibit A of why it’s so dangerous to get hooked.
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