When Bud Light opted to retain the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a digital marketing campaign, it was clear what Anheuser-Busch (BUD) -) wanted to accomplish
The beer company was trying to leverage Mulvaney's prominence to reach her audience and expand the brand's audience in the LGBTQ+ community. Budweiser executives had no real reason to believe that anyone outside Mulvaney's fan base would see the promotion.
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Kid Rock, of course, changed the trajectory of that promotion. His video, in which he shot up cases of Bud Light, brought attention to the Mulvaney campaign from Bud Light's core audience. And much of that audience did not like the brand's idea to partner with a transgender person. That led to the boycott of Bud Light, which has seen the brand's sales fall by 28%.
Bud Light executives misjudged their audience or they took a risk in hoping that their core customers would not see the Mulvaney promotion.
L'Oreal's (LRLCY) -) Maybelline appears to have followed Bud Light in making a marketing choice that its fans are widely rejecting. In this case, however, the company opted to share its controversial spokesperson choice not on an influencer's page but on its own Instagram site as part of a promotion for Amazon's Prime Day.
Image source: Shutterstock
Maybelline Uses Top Influencer for Lipstick Tutorial
Maybelline released a Prime Day video featuring Ryan Vita, a social-media influencer who uses "she/he/they" pronouns and describes themselves as "*not like other beauty gurus." Vita is a major star in the social-media world, with 1.2 million TikTok followers.
They sport a bald head and a bushy beard and their Instagram videos involve testing different makeups. Maybelline posted a video of Vita touting its Prime Day specials while trying on various makeup products.
"Of course we have @amazon prime day deals @ryanvitabeauty 😉!!! Click on the link in our bio to shop our bundles while this offer lasts! Hurry prime day ends tonight!!!!! 💰#maybellinepartner," the company posted.
The decision to use Vita for the promotion was met with an immediate social-media backlash.
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Social Media Reacts to Maybelline's Promotion
While Vita clearly has a large following that support their videos, their audience does not appear to be the one Maybelline reached with this promotion. The comments on its Instagram page were overwhelmingly negative.
"Maybelline needs Jesus Christ ASAP like this isn’t normal at all," wrote jemimatanga.
"Disturbing video worst way of marketing," added um_laren4.
"I don`t want any more makeup of Maybelline, this is not normal propaganda," daleksieva shared.
"Now you know what brand of cosmetics not to buy," ivansq78 wrote.
The video did get nearly 18,000 likes but the comments were overwhelmingly negative, with many calling to stop buying the brand. The core argument from people appears to be outlined here:
"The point of advertising is to focus on a target audience, not alienate them. You had better hope that there are a lot of lipstick-wearing, bearded men out there to make up the sales that you have just lost,"karenshaf57 wrote.
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