Sales of Bud Light beer cratered after a marketing executive for the brand partnered with transgender internet influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Anheuser-Busch Marketing Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid inked a deal with Mulvaney and sent him cans of Bud Light bearing his image. Mulvaney drank from one of the promotional cans to mark his “365 Days of Girlhood” on social media. He had announced his “transition” from male to transgender female in a March 2022 social media post.
“I had this super clear mandate: We need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand,” explained Heinersched after brand consumers began boycotting the product. The backlash against Bud Light has cost the company millions and Heinerscheid has since taken a leave of absence as the beer maker tries to restore the brand.
The influenceer Mulvaney broke weeks of silence about the furious reaction to his sponsorship deal with the iconic beer.
The New York Post further reported:
Dylan Mulvaney returned to Instagram following the mass outrage over her partnership with Bud Light.
The transgender influencer, 26, raised ire among critics after being signed as a rep for the beer brand in a March Madness contest and has since kept her distance from Instagram.
Taking to Instagram Thursday, Mulvaney explained why she was “offline for a few weeks” as the backlash against the brand deal intensified.
“A lot has been said about me,” she said in a clip shared with her 1.8 million followers on the platform. “Some of which is so far from my truth that I was hearing my name and I didn’t know who they were talking about sometimes.
“It was so loud that I didn’t even feel part of the conversation so I decided to take the backseat.”
The company has been largely tight-lipped since April 1, when the social media star swigged Bud Light and showed off a commemorative can with her image on it to celebrate her first year as a woman.
But the brand’s controversial marketing tie-up ultimately resulted in declining demand, with Bud Light trailing other light beers by 6% at bars and restaurants.
Overall, Bud Light’s volume declined by 34.7% at bars, restaurants and other venues between April 2 and April 15, according to BeerBoard.
Several restaurants and bars have stopped serving the beer brand altogether in their establishments.
Mulvaney said she’s “doing OK,” but noted that being called “too feminine and over the top” makes her feel like when she was a child.
“But this time it’s from other adults,” she said. “And if they’re going to accuse me of anything it should be that I’m a theater person and that I’m camp. But this is just my personality and it always has been.”
“What I’m struggling to understand is the need to dehumanize and to be cruel. Dehumanization has never fixed anything in history,” said the influencer, who revealed her transition in a TikTok video in March 2022.
“I grew up in a conservative family and I’m extremely privileged because they still love me very much. And I grew up in the church and I still have my faith, which I am really trying to hold on to right now” she said, adding that she’s “always tried to love everyone, even the people that make it really, really hard.”
Mulvaney, who didn’t mention Bud Light in the post, said she’s shifting her focus onto the people “who know me and my heart won’t listen to that noise.”
“The good news is that the people pleaser in me has nearly died because there’s clearly no way of winning over everyone. But if you’re still around. I am too.”
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