Bud Light Competitors Hoping To Cash In on Uproar Over Transgender Spokeswoman
Bud Light joins the ranks of brands for which conservatives are providing ‘anti-woke’ alternatives.
Following a Bud Light marketing campaign featuring a transgender American actress, Dylan Mulvaney, conservatives have been losing their cool online and looking for an alternative. Some of Bud Light’s competitors are taking notes.
Since the online outrage began parent company Anheuser-Busch has reportedly lost around $5 billion in market cap, about 5 percent of the company’s value, but its stock is still trading well above its lows over the last 30 days and rebounded slightly Thursday. While it’s likely that rebound will continue, the competitors are cleaning up.
The privately owned Yuengling brewing company, which touts itself as “America’s oldest brewery,” is having a moment in the sun as an emerging fan favorite Bud-alternative for the online right.
The attention is largely due to the 2016 endorsement of President Trump by the company’s owner, Richard “Dick” Yuengling, a move that landed them in hot water back in the day. “Our guys are behind your father,” Mr. Yuengling told the former president’s son, Eric Trump, in 2016.
A startup beer company, Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right, is also attempting to fill the void in conservatives’ refrigerators with its supposedly “100 percent woke-free American beer.”
The company’s owner, a conservative social media influencer who owns the “conservative body” brand, Seth Weathers, released an ad featuring Mr. Weathers walking out of a public restroom and opening a can of beer before bashing a Bud Light with a baseball bat.
“As conservatives, we’re constantly getting hit in the face left and right by the woke mind virus,” Mr. Weathers said. “But the last place we want it is in our beer.”
A six-pack of Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right can now be preordered for $19.99 plus shipping and tax. According to the company, deliveries of the beer will begin on May 11.
Even PETA is joining in the dogpile, with its members protesting outside the Budweiser headquarters in Saint Louis on April 10, wearing “giant realistic horse masks,” according to the organization.
PETA, though, was protesting Budweiser’s treatment of its famous Clydesdale horses, claiming “Budweiser Has Blood on Its Cans,” and handing out Ripple White Ale from Saint Louis-based Four Hands Brewing Company.
Since the ad campaign outrage, Bud Light is now the latest brand to see “anti-woke” conservative alternatives pop up, joining the ranks of companies like Harry’s Razors and a number of coffee companies.
It’s not clear if Bud Light is planning to take any sort of action over the online explosion or if it just plans on letting the anti-woke outrage blow over.
Other companies have survived similar panics relatively unscathed. Coors Light saw a backlash in 2021 to an ad campaign targeting LGBT consumers with the tagline “our Pride runs mile high,” but the attention was considerably less intense than what Bud Light is facing.
Thus far, both Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light’s social media accounts have been quiet since the backlash began April 1, and the company has issued the same statement to multiple different publications saying that it works “with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics.”
“From time to time we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney,” the company said. “This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public.”