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I wish you luck in the boycott, only because I want culture war issues to be seen the same way companies treat religious issues. There should be a giant blaring neon sign in the mind of any exec saying "TOXIC! STAY AWAY! BEWARE!" Where the only winning move is not to play.
I didn't watch the ad, I don't watch ads in general. I don't watch controversial things just for the sake of being aware of the controversy.
I won't be joining the boycott, I purchase Michelob Ultra pretty regularly because its one of the lowest carb beers, and I'm on a low carb diet.
The marketing exec that started this campaign did it as an effort to expand the brand to younger audiences. I do generally hate marketing departments. They are often filled with a certain type of person. They typically despise their customers, rarely use their own product, and only seem behind HR in terms of signing up for the latest woke craze. If anything good comes out of this it will be a tighter leash on marketing departments.
I think of it as the portfolio problem. Even if someone in marketing, fashion, Hollywood, consulting etc. is not woke, they need to think about their next job or commission, as well as their general reputation in their industry. One way to promote their reputation is finding ways to be woke, even if it doesn't make sense in the particular case. There are all sorts of reasons why your assignment might have failed that have nothing to do with you, but if you can say that it was a bold and innovative implementation of received wisdom, then there's a way to sell even a loss as a reason to hire you in the future. After all, maybe you were just ahead of your time...
Why do you need to think of your next job? Can’t you work for bud light your entire career and promote one product? This particular person was not a consultant or outside agency.
Also bold in advertising isn’t necessarily good if it’s stupid. It’s not most of the time the job of a marketer to take risks but instead to just keep pounding the brand image that works. Coke still sells Santa Claus and Americana.
Marketing is notorious for its churn. I don’t quite know why, but very few people seem to work in marketing departments long term.
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This is not the experience of almost any white collar (or blue collar, for that matter) worker I know under the age of 50.
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Fascinatingly, I heard an ad on the radio earlier today that was approximately "Listen to the Holy Spirit, allow the Holy Spirit into your heart" brought to you by iHeartRadio, subscribe to iHeartRadio meditation today and I nearly pulled over and called to make sure my radio hadn't malfunctioned.
Costco sells a Kirkland 0 carb seltzer, tastes better than 'virgin' to me. Might be worth trying
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