Bud Light: the beer that got snarled up in the culture wars

If you need further evidence of just how heated America’s culture war has grown, said Emily Stewart on Vox, have a look at the video that went viral in which Kid Rock, the “bad-ass singer”, can be seen shooting up cases of America’s most popular beer – Bud Light.

“Grandpa’s feeling a little frisky today,” says 52-year-old Rock, before grabbing a semi-automatic rifle and spraying the beer cans with bullets. “F**k Bud Light and f**k Anheuser-Busch,” he exclaims, before signing off to viewers with: “Have a terrific day.”

The Bud backlash

Rock isn’t the only one to have turned his fury on Anheuser-Busch (AB), said Amanda Holpuch in The New York Times. Its executives have received bomb threats; there have been widespread calls for a boycott; country singer Travis Tritt dropped all AB brands from his tour; Marjorie Taylor Greene mocked the self-proclaimed king of beers as “the queen of beers”.

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And all this was sparked by the beer-maker’s decision to pay 26-year-old influencer and actress Dylan Mulvaney, a high-profile transwoman, to pose alongside a personalised Bud Light can in an Instagram video celebrating the first anniversary of her transition to womanhood.

It was a decision dreamed up by AB marketing executive Alissa Heinerscheid. She was convinced that to arrest the decline in Bud Light’s sales, the brand had to outgrow its “fratty” and “out of touch” reputation and be seen by young consumers as more “inclusive”.

Boycotts ‘seldom get far’

I don’t get this idea that Bud Light is “uninclusive”, said Charles C.W. Cooke in National Review. In my experience, people of all races, religions and sexual orientations drink it.

What you have to understand, said Sarah Jones in New York Magazine, is that corporations such as AB aren’t being “woke” when they do things like this; they just know “they need young consumers, who typically are at odds with the Right over LGBTQ+ rights”. And for all the noise, I doubt AB has much to fear over a consumer boycott. They seldom get far.

Remember when evangelicals “tried to boycott Starbucks over its ‘holiday cups’”, which they said proved the company was waging war on Christmas; or Christians warned that Harry Potter promoted witchcraft? You probably don’t. Bud Light may be losing sales to better beers, “but a boycott is unlikely to harm it”.

‘Kicking a political hornets’ nest’

Don’t be so sure, said Caitlin O’Kane on CBS. AB has been so spooked by the reaction and the slump in sales it has now released a new patriotic video featuring its signature Clydesdale horse mascot galloping past patriotic symbols – people raising an American flag, the Lincoln Memorial and so on.

This episode “should be a teaching moment for every company that aspires to be at culture’s cutting edge”, said Ben Schott on Bloomberg. “Kicking a political hornets’ nest” in an effort to jump-start sales before running away “is no way to elevate a brand”.