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A fair question, and I guess one must ask "compared to what?" AB's entire advertising budget for 2023? Do we have numbers? I doubt this pitch was more than a drop in the bucket, honestly, so it's easy to argue that this is an insignificant thing. Only, we have AB's VP of marketing bragging on the record about how they're trying to transform Bud Light's brand, attract a new, more youthful consumer base because their existing customer base is in decline. It doesn't seem arguable that the Mulvany ad was a straightforward part of this strategy. Large-scale brand strategies run by the VP of marketing are, in fact, a central example of a major marketing push, and this ad was a central example of that push's aim. It's not peripheral, it's not irrelevant, it's a perfect example of what they intentionally set out to do.
This isn't a case of bad execution of a good idea, but rather good execution of a bad idea. The problem isn't that they picked the wrong trans woman to be their face. The problem isn't that they wrote the script wrong, or posted the video at the wrong time or in the wrong place. The problem certainly isn't that Conservatives Pounced. You make an ad because you want people to see it; congratulations, people saw it. If it were a good ad, if this strategy were a good idea, the virality would be a massive windfall. It isn't, so it isn't. The problem is that the Trans issue is quite possibly the very hottest spot in our rapidly accelerating culture war, and they tried to use it for a brand-pivot that actively insulted their core customer base.
Sure, that's true. I'm not going to pretend that I knew the boycott would be this effective. But I'm pretty sure I could have told you or in fact AB that ditching your core customers to chase a population that considers you a punchline, via inserting yourself into the most contentious topic in American politics, was likely to be more than a little risky.
Yeah, I suppose it's hard to say if Mulvaney would really have just been more of a one-off thing or the prototype for a new marketing campaign.
The VP of marketing said a fair bit about her plans for a new marketing campaign. How do you interpret her statements?
When you phrase it that way, it sounds like a slam-dunk, but I think there's probably enough wiggle room between what we did get and the unrealized plan. A larger campaign might be comparatively more sanitized for the American public.
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