Kid Rock started the Bud Light boycott. He never actually used that word, nor did he ever explicitly tell people to stay away from the brand.
Instead, he declared his displeasure at the Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) -) brand the way any rational person would. He posted a video on social media where he used an automatic weapon to shoot up cases of the beer.
Without explicitly saying so, the "Cowboy" and "All Summer Long" singer was very angry that the beer brand had a minor partnership with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Rock, as expressed in his video, apparently did not want to drink a beer that transgender and LGBTQ+ people also enjoyed.
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A lot of people agreed with him and Anheuser-Busch saw sales for Bud Light drop more than 25%. That was enough to enable Modelo to overtake Bud Light as the top-selling U.S. beer brand. And the boycott led to layoffs of hundreds of workers who had no say in the company deciding to partner with Mulvaney.
For a while, the controversy was a drag on the company's stock. That changed recently as Anheuser-Busch InBev stock has moved into positive territory for the year. The impact of the boycott persists, however, marking any move the company makes with Bud Light as controversial.
Image source: Shutterstock
Anheuser-Busch takes the long view on Bud Light
Anheuser-Busch has not handled the controversy well. It did not support Mulvaney, nor did it apologize for the promotion. Instead, it sort of acted as if nothing had happened and went back to its traditional "we love football" approach mixed with sophomoric humor.
The brewer's CEO, Michel Doukeris, did say that the Mulvaney promotion was a mistake, but he has been clear that he will steer the brand free of politics going forward.
"With respect to Bud Light brand performance, we have actively engaged with over 260,000 consumers since April, and the common points of feedback remain consistent," he said during the company's third-quarter-earnings call.
"One, consumers continue to want the Bud Light brand to concentrate on the platforms that all consumers love, and we are doing just that through investing in partnerships with the NFL, Folds of Honor, news platforms, college football, and our recently announced return to partnering with the UFC."
The CEO does believe that by going back to basics, Bud Light can recover.
"They want Bud Light to focus on beer," he added. "...Notably, a recent survey found that over 40% of lapsed Bud Light drinkers said that they are now more open to come back to drinking Bud Light."
Kid Rock has come back to Bud Light
By taking an all-is-normal approach to marketing, Bud Light has exposed its brand to a lot of social-media scorn. The beer brand would post something benign like "It's Sunday, let's have a cold beer," and any positive responses would be mostly drowned out by hateful posts and transphobic memes.
That has lessened a bit, perhaps because Kid Rock himself has "forgiven" the beer brand. Basically, the singer made clear that while the brand made a mistake trying to appeal to people whose beliefs he does not share, he was willing to let that go. (A few months after the controversy broke, he was seen drinking a Bud Light.)
Others who supported the boycott have not been so forgiving, and that has led to outrage about Bud Light's latest commercial with the former National Football League quarterback Peyton Manning and the running back Emmitt Smith.
Manning, who usually avoids even a hint of controversy, is seen in the ad throwing perfect passes to bar patrons of cans of beer after he buys a round for the bar.
It's an innocuous ad, a mildly clever commercial that looks a million others. That did not stop the social-media supporters of the Bud Light boycott from training their venom on Manning and other players after a follow-up ad showed the star QB trying to recruit more players to the Bud Light cause.
The comments under the new ad, which was posted on X, the former Twitter, range from transphobic to political.
"They never apologized. It never ended. We don’t care about the jobs lost or an American brand being tarnished. Conservatives want to chip away at the racist and harmful leftist ideologies. An apology from a major corporation would be very harmful to the LGBT agenda," Tom Ferry posted.
That was a pretty typical theme, as was expressing outrage that Manning was supporting transgender rights by doing the ad.
"I lost all respect for you Payton. You're already filthy rich and you sold yourself to the devil for more money," Troy Barille posted.
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