In Bud Light Debacle Workers Should Fight Too

I stand firmly with the Bud Light boycott over the controversy surrounding putting transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on their beer cans. And that's saying something since I am generally opposed to boycotts. However, when it comes to woke and cancel culture, which has permeated businesses of all kinds for some years now, I take a different stance.

Enough is enough.

The role of business is not to promote social causes or to necessarily have one position or another. It is to promote their products and services and make a profit. When they sway from this primary purpose, they jeopardize their ability to do that.

But it is not just owners and shareholders that suffer when a backlash happens. It's the workers who get hurt in the process as well.

Consumers who are unhappy with what a business is doing is going to make a stand against it with their wallets. As someone once was quoted as saying, "Every dollar we spend casts a vote for the kind of world we want to live in." In the case of the Bud Light controversy, consumers are speaking quite loudly about their unhappiness.

At some point the position the company is taking is going to affect the workers who produce the products and services and I think they should be fighting just as hard against this sort of thing as consumers are. It's their jobs at stake, after all.

Because let's not forget, while Bud Light is only one brand among many, consumers boycotting Bud Light aren't necessarily boycotting just that brand. They are boycotting the company behind it. Anheuser-Busch InBev. So, while one may consider that other brands being sold could pick up the slack, so to speak, that's not necessarily the case.

Workers need to stand up and tell the company they work for that this sort of thing doesn't do anyone any good. You are taking a stand for a group of people who represent only 1% of the population. The other 99% are standing against you and if profits fall, our jobs could be cut.

Granted, people in general do have short attention spans, and so it is reasonable to assume that perhaps this issue falls by the wayside sooner rather than later. Still, with losses looming around $7 billion and counting, and with woke and cancel culture becoming more and more disliked, the impact of Bud Light's decision to put Mulvaney on the can could well be a lasting one after all.

Part of the issue, I think, is that I don't think companies are necessarily getting the message clearly enough. The response from Anheuser-Busch InBev about the controversy, which was more of a non-response, seems to indicate that.

They sort of said to their customers, "We don't care what you think." And even if that's not word-for-word what they said, that's what customers heard. That was the essence of the company's response. "We are going to do what we want to do and you're just going to have to accept that and fall in line."

In other words, I don't think it is enough for just consumers to stop buying the products. I think other businesses should make a stand too and pull products from their shelves, and workers should step off the production line and say, "We're not returning to work until you understand your customers better."

You have to fight fire with fire. Because the woke and cancel crowd right now have all the fire, and a lot of it. The rest of us need to have as much fire individually as they do, because ultimately we will have more fire. We are the majority.

Whether or not workers would actually do this is debatable. Or even retailers. I understand, on a common-sense surface level why they might choose not to. Still, if the message is not delivered strongly enough, the other side will simply keep on winning, and the majority will have to continue to be bombarded with more of this nonsense that is becoming a deadly cancer on American business.

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/jimbauerwrites where I post my blogs, articles and other writing from here and all the other places I write.

Tim Owens Steps Down As CEO of Drinks Americas (DKAM)

There are those funny moments. You know, like when the lottery is at an astronomical jackpot and you find yourself clacking away at the calculator trying to figure out what you'd reap if you actually got lucky enough to be the winner of it all.

Tim Owens, former CEO of Drinks Americas Holdings which has a connection with Mexican beer maker Cerveceria Mexicana, and distributes Day of the Dead craft beer among a few other brands stepping down, opens me up to one of those moments.

I love beer, man.

Earlier I was writing about the success of The Boston Beer Company and the one thing that makes Samuel Adams a great brand, and The Boston Beer Company a great company. It's Jim Koch and his love and passion for making great beer.

He's also quite keen on how to effectively run a company. That helps greatly too.

Drinks Americas Holdings has made some decent inroads getting its beer into various retail outlets such as The Fresh Market, Kroger, Walmart, and Walgreens. Even some 7-Eleven stores have taken to stocking Day of the Dead craft beer. When you're small, this is a big step. Unfortunately the company's stock price has suffered, and the company has had difficulty really turning the Day of the Dead brand into something spectacular.

I think it can be.

But that will take the leadership of someone like a Jim Koch. Someone who has a passion for beer, and who knows how to both bring that beer to market, and turn Drinks Americas into a strong player in its industry.

Day of the Dead and Drinks Americas has been a story more than 6-years in the making in a sector of the brewing industry that for many other companies has been the fastest growing sector for a very long time. When you are in beer, and enjoying double digit growth, that's something to be happy about.

So why hasn't Drinks Americas gotten there? I think, and while I am not begrudging Tim Owens, that his guidance simply was not enough to drive the company forward. His reasons for leaving were disclosed as "concerns over health issues." But I tend to think there is more behind the scenes that is happening that lead Mr. Owens to his decision than is being told.

Most of the Board of Directors is gone aside from Moreno, who is now the interim CEO of the company.

What is says to me is that there is sea change occurring. And I think with the inroads already made, fresh blood might be exactly what the doctor ordered to take this company to the next level.

It won't be easy. In order to attract talent at the CEO level you need to lay an attractive enough offer on the table. Especially if you may want to try and get someone into the CEO's seat who has a strong background with a major product launch with a larger company.

It's what made me think, just for a second. Yes. I do in fact love beer. Heck, I could probably buy the lion's share of this company and just seat myself. But what the heck do I know? I like drinking beer, and while I am passionate about the world of marketing and business, I am an investor. Not a businessman. So of course, that would not be nearly enough to take Drinks Americas to the next level as enticing as the prospect would be to at least try and do it.

I am confident that Moreno has some ideas as to where he wants to take the company next. But even still, I won't be adding any shares to my position until I know who the new CEO will be, and until I hear his ideas and get a clear view of his vision for where he plans to go with the brands and the company as a whole.

In the meantime I suppose I can sit back, crack open a cold one, and ponder the possibilities.

DAY OF THE DEAD BEER WEBSITE