How ironic that this marketing whiz is going to end up as a case study at one of her alma maters, either Harvard, or Wharton, or even both
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Anheuser-Busch CEO disavows Bud Light transvestite ads
The top executive of Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch on Thursday disavowed the embattled company’s ties to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney as sales of the beer crater.
“We need to clarify the facts that this was one can, one influencer, one post and not a campaign,” Michel Doukeris told investors during an earnings call.
Doukeris went on to decry the “misinformation” spread on social media after Mulvaney last month posted a photo with a Bud Light while in a bathtub on TikTok to her more than 10 million followers.
The company faced immediate blowback from many conservative regions of the country. Calls for a Bud Light boycott have threatening Bud Light’s leading position as the country’s most popular brand.
During the week ended April 22 — the most recent industry data available — Bud Light sales plunged 21% vs. a year ago, accelerating from a 17% slide a week earlier and an initial weekly drop of 6% when the controversy kicked off during the first week of April, according to Nielsen IQ and Bump Williams Consulting.During the week ended April 22 — the most recent industry data available — Bud Light sales plunged 21% vs. a year ago, accelerating from a 17% slide a week earlier and an initial weekly drop of 6% when the controversy kicked off during the first week of April, according to Nielsen IQ and Bump Williams Consulting.
Bud Light put the two marketing executives responsible for this fiasco — Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing, and her boss, Daniel Blake — on leave, and I’m sure it was made clear that they should use their sudden vacation to seek alternative employment. They’re bound to find new homes with some other woke firms, and Budweiser’s sales are sure to eventually recover, but the cost of putting an anorexic boy/girl in a bathtub with a can of the company’s once-manly product may prove to be the costliest marketing blunder in the history of bad advertising. The Heinerschied Campaign may end up as a classic study at business schools, just as Napolean’s Russian adventure has provided fodder for military courses worldwide since 1812. Immortality, Alissa — that’s a great thing!
