So AB InBev did some sort of integrated advertising with a transgender social media personality, and that individual made a short post on their social media accounts promoting the brand by showing off custom cans of Bud Light they were provided for the advertisement.
Now the usual suspects are angry, and a few washed up celebrities took to their social media accounts to denounce the brand, and in one extreme, shoot their stock of the product that they had already purchased or purchased for the purpose of making the video. (Bud Light thanks you for the purchase. They don’t care what you do with it after it’s paid for.)
That one social media short has put the brand at the front of people’s minds, filled their social media feeds with mentions of it, and got product placement on most major news programs and networks. It doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad publicity. As the saying goes, all publicity is good publicity. Especially when Super Bowl ad equivalent exposure only cost them a couple thousand dollars at most.
Brilliant!!
Additionally, the marketing teams at AB have been very good at this for a very long time. Everything they do is calculated. I guarantee a lot of research was done prior to letting this single ad go public. They expected the “boycott” to happen, and concluded the revenue gain from the ad would more than cancel out what was lost. All these people talking about their brand is a shit ton of free advertising.
It’s also very possible that this was an attempt to make their product appeal to a broader audience by distancing themselves from people who are bigoted towards the LGBTQ community. I think the ad has been a huge success in that regard.
This is what capitalism looks like: trying to sell the most product to the largest markets. The fine folks at Bud Light apparently have decided that the demographic which contains the people who are angry about this ad isn’t large enough to worry about. Or, like most things, they’ll forget about it in a few weeks and will go out and buy more Bud Light to replace what they just threw away for likes and attention.
So keep posting about how angry you are, and how you’ll never buy Bud Light again. AB InBev and their marketing team thanks you for promoting their campaign at no cost to them.
That reminds me, I’m out of Bud Light Next. I’ll have to stop and pick some up tomorrow.
Trav