Newsweek: Bud Light's Course Correction Is Not Cancel Culture

Stephen Kent writes in NEWSWEEK:

“But what happened in the end with Heinerscheid and Bud Light was not cancel culture. If it was, that would mean consumers have only one option when a mega brand makes the calculated choice to alienate one audience's set of cultural values in favor of another: to cheer.

Bud Light has a real problem—one that the former marketing VP correctly identified. It is seen as the beer of blue-collar white men in their 40s stopping by the 7-Eleven to load up on 12-packs before passing out on the couch at home. That's not an entirely accurate impression, as Bud Light's core demo is a bit younger, but next-generation drinkers are not rushing to store shelves for light beer. Alissa Heinerscheid felt she had a mandate to change that. "I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light," she said on a podcast last month. "It was, this brand is in decline, it's been in decline for a very long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light."

Heinerscheid's answer to that problem was a somewhat charming 2023 Super Bowl ad featuring a millennial couple dancing in their living room with Bud Lights, as well as influencer outreach that culminated in the lightning-rod choice of a particularly eccentric transgender social media personality.

A marketing play by an iconic beer should work, or at least do no harm. All available evidence shows that Heinerscheid and Blake failed on both counts. Any serious company operating on traditional metrics of enhanced profits and strengthened brand loyalty would immediately fire anyone responsible for a $4 billion mistake and three weeks of unwanted negative attention. Perhaps we've gotten used to woke corporations taking it on the chin financially for social media applause, but Anheuser-Busch seems to have acted in an old-school way with a marketing lead who failed at marketing.”

Read more from me on the Bud Light controversy in Newsweek Opinion