TheQuartering [4/17/2023]
A group of marketing execs at Anheuser-Busch, the company that created the Budweiser beer franchise, are brainstorming about their inability to extend Bud’s client base beyond traditional beer drinkers, i.e. older, working-class males.
They want a new hipster generation of millennials and Gen-Z’ers to start enjoying cold ones as well. But it’s a real balancing act. Young people just won’t drop their craft cocktails and spiked sodas for beer overnight. And you can’t just ignore your long-time customers.
“I got an idea,” says one of the suits, “let’s do a commercial featuring a trans woman and social-media influencer sipping a Bud Light, semi-nude, in a bubble bath.”
“Brilliant!” the head of marketing beams, “Problem solved!”
The aforementioned is a parody, of course. But like most parodies, it contains some striking elements of truth. It speaks to our latest example of corporate wokeism run amok, one that, if you’ve been following the news lately, threatens to ruin a corporate brand that took nearly two centuries to cultivate, and maybe two weeks to destroy.
On these pages we’ve chronicled the noxious critical-race-theory indoctrination sessions at big firms like American Express, and Disney’s weird political opposition to a Florida law that only seeks to prevent schools from teaching sex-ed to toddlers. Jamie Dimon, the normally sensible CEO of banking giant JPMorgan, taking a knee for a photo in apparent allegiance to the radical Black Lives Matter movement.
Called out on their actions amid backlash from customers, AmEx execs tell me those CRT sessions are no longer in place. Disney has toned down its lefty politics with the return of Bob Iger as CEO. The PR staff at JPMorgan now contend that Dimon took a knee to make sure people behind him weren’t obstructed.
Anheuser-Busch is also scrambling to justify why its new ads featuring the transgender TikTok influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney are a cool way of reaching new customers while not offending its current ones.
It’s not working; Kid Rock recently took to social media posting a video of him shooting at cans of Bud Light. It went viral. Bars are reporting a drop in Bud Light sales. The company’s stock lost billions in market cap.