May 2023 INSIGHTS
What do Tik-Tok Drag Social Influencers and FEDERAL Banking Regulations have in common?
The answer may be more Surprising than you think.
Case Study: Take for example Anheuser-Busch and the Bud-Light uproar by showing support for the Trans community through an endorsement deal with Dylan Mulvaney, an individual who markets him/herself as a transgender influencer, during Woman’s History Month, instead of LGBTQ Pride Month. Content warning: Drinking a Bud Light, will not make you gay. I promise.
In today’s marketing landscape, there are challenges stemming from professionals using their field expertise in areas where customers are forced to adapt to ideologies that do not conform to their long-held beliefs. These ideologies can touch on critical social and economic factors that drive consumerism and their desire to support or remain loyal to a brand.
The results of this experiment can be convoluted by failing to recognize the delimited effect on the brand base, thus effectively eliminating growth opportunities while actually reducing its users by alienating its base. The risk was to open the brand to a more flexible base of users by trying to appeal to gender fluidity. The result was less than stellar. On the other hand, the executives stood on an American principle of supporting the underdog and in doing so, wiped nearly 27 billion dollars off the books in stock value.
Marketers and brand holders need to understand that implementing new ideas and inviting new ways of interpreting change should be done with care and understanding of how such change can affect the overall brand condition. An examp of a brand pushing an agenda that may have alienated brand loyalists is Anheuser-Busch’s approach with Bud Light, which supposedly upset “conservative” consumers that make up a strong percentage of its user base.
Freedom lovers, especially conservative consumers, are adaptable to many things but do not take what is perceived as an attempt to force an agenda lightly. Timing is everything, and weighing the outcome to a national mood is just as critical as the subject matter being introduced. If we were to critique the effort, it’s not the subject matter, but more of the perceived arrogance of how the subject matter was construed to be part of a larger agenda.
In today’s economic landscape, productivity, capital, and labor are facing new challenges in a changing context. Foremost among the drivers of change has been technology, spearheaded by #digitaltransformation.
In conclusion, marketers and brand holders should approach change with care and understanding of how it may affect the overall brand condition. Anheuser-Busch’s approach with Bud Light #marketing may have upset some brand loyalists, but it is important to note that timing is everything, and weighing the outcome to a national mood is just as critical as the subject matter being introduced.
Or, this is the narrative that the controlling elites want you to believe. Why, you ask?
Collectively, we strongly believe in celebrating individualism from all perspectives, even those that may take us out of our comfort zones. It is this diversity that makes us uniquely human and, dare I say, American. I firmly oppose any attempt to impose consequences on a brand like Anheuser-Busch, based on false pretenses. Such actions are contrary to our American values and the principles we were raised with.
Reasons to consider support for the Bud Light brand.
It’s worth noting that Budweiser has been a significant donor to conservative, social and environmental causes, contributing tens of millions of dollars. There are unseen forces at play here that are part of a completely different agenda. If you examine the brand over the past several decades you would see an American company who has always been centered around American causes.
In service to Budweiser’s larger commitment to the military and through its unwavering partnership with Folds of Honor over the last 13 years, Anheuser-Busch, its brands and wholesaler partners have donated $21.7 million, providing life-changing scholarships to the families of fallen or injured heroes. The Anheuser-Busch Foundation has donated $500,000 to the American Red Cross to support services for about 2 million members of the military, veterans and their families. $500,000 to the NRCC in the last election cycle. That is the National Republican Committee folks.
Budweiser’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, awards grants to nonprofit groups for a range of activities. The company is interested in helping the communities it is a part of through its products’ sales, according to the company’s website. Anheuser-Busch sells more than 48 percent of the beer in the United States through its various brands. The grants awarded range in value from a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Anheuser-Busch’s grants are geared toward education, economic development and the environment. Within each type of grant are variations. For example, an environmental grant might come in the form of funds supporting recycling efforts. An education grant might come in the form of funds being donated to a scholarship fund or to help pay for the building of a new college library. I bring these issues up because we are supposed to judge companies now based upon their actions.
There are countless acts of kindness that this American Company that employs tens of thousands of Americans does, without notice or favor.