Make Sure Bud Light Boycott Really Bites In

Most of the time when conservatives boycott something, the impact is short-lived, for whatever reason. I think most conservatives just eventually move on. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's a good quality to have, and a lot of times conservatives don't really participate in boycotts all that much anyway—although we will be apt to participate in more focused support for certain companies who follow certain principles and do the right thing.

Think Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A.

But the Bud Light controversy is sticking, and conservatives across the country are sticking it hard to parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev, not just leaving Bud Light on the shelves and refusing to order the beer in bars and restaurants. They are sticking it to their other brands as well and simply not buying any of the beers made by Anheuser-Busch. 

No doubt the pain is being felt. The company is losing billions of dollars in revenue each week and meanwhile, other beers like Miller Lite and Coors Lite are flying off the shelves.

There is even a beer that was launched being monikered Ultra Right, that is being contract brewed somewhere in Northern Illinois, created by Seth Weathers, a former director in Georgia in 2016 who headed up former president Donald Trump's campaign.

It should be noted that it was initially going to be contract brewed by Bent River Brewing, but company president Nick Bowes declined to brew it after he saw what the marketing would be for it. Perhaps conservatives should take note of Bent River as well?

Because again, as I have asked multiple times before, is business about money or politics? And if you want to inject politics into your business plan, maybe that should have an impact on your business? Good or bad mind you. Certainly, Ultra Right would be doing that with their own beer brand. And being marketed as an unwoke beer is certainly a political statement if there ever was one.

By the way, I should point out that Miller Lite and Coors Light are American beers of course. But the company that produces them are no longer American, and while that doesn't necessarily matter in light of the Bud Light controversy, perhaps just keeping that somewhere in the back of the mind is something to think about.

As far as large American breweries go there's Yuengling and the Boston Beer Company to consider. Boston Beer makes Sam Adams. Yuengling says they aren't woke. Boston Beer has not currently taken any position.

As far as the boycott is concerned, I think the message being sent needs to be a clear one. We are tired of this woke crap being shoved down our throats and being forced to submit to it. In other words, we can't just go back to business as usual when it comes to Anheuser-Busch InBev. In order for the message to have long legs it needs to serve as a warning and poster child for any other company who wants to engage in woke politics that their best move would be to cease and desist. Otherwise, businesses wanting to engage in such antics will simply calculate their short-term losses to maintain appeasement for the minority groups wanting to push their politics on everyone else.

In other words, businesses will be allowed to simply have their cake and eat it too.

At least for now it appears that this boycott will have a lasting impact. But it's also way too soon to assert that as a reality. And it's not about necessarily punishing or bringing down a company. It's simply about making it clear that businesses need to know their customers and simply stick to branding and selling products and leave the rest up to advocacy groups to have their say. It's to say that if you decide to cow-toe to minority pressures while alienating your core customers to accomplish it, there will be a price to pay for it.

Even if Anheuser-Busch backtracks and apologizes to save their business, I think conservatives need to say no. It's not enough. Your last move was the final straw. It's what broke the camel's back. We have to determine whether or not the apology is really genuine. We have to know that they really got the message. And other businesses need to be all too aware that if they decide to go the direction Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch did, there's not going to be an easy way out of it.

What's the old saying? You shouldn't have to say sorry to one's you love. Beyond that, sorry doesn't always cut it. And in this case, perhaps it shouldn't.

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Is Alissa Heinersheid Out, or Is She Over Bud Light Marketing Controversy?

Was the vice president of marketing, Alissa Heinsersheid, fired over the Bud Light controversy? Well, that depends on who you talk to and how you want to interpret words. Which, by the way, is an age-old tactic with the left that perhaps took root when Bill Clinton famously answered a question by asking another question, "That depends on what is is."

Or maybe it was something the left has been doing long before Clinton's now famous response to what was a rather simple question. They say things that sound like the same thing but aren't exactly necessarily the same thing.

What Anheuser-Busch InBev said is that she simply took a "leave of absence."

One thing the left, and particularly the woke and cancel culture people, hate to do is admit defeat. They very strongly don't want to be wrong. 

It depends on what "is" is.

Whether or not company officials say she was fired or not to me doesn't matter. As I have said before, business is about dollars and cents. Not politics—even if many corporate America executive boards and leadership now seemed to have tapped into woke people to lead them.

They chose to allow a bad idea to hit the airwaves thinking they were being inclusive and thinking that woke culture is "the new next best thing," and they thought that consumers would rejoice when they saw transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on their beer cans.

Because woke people, besides being misinformed about their own cause and popularity, and despite the feeling of power they think they have, are simply out of touch with reality. Consumers are having had enough of it and they sent a clear message to Anheuser-Busch InBev about it. They don't want to just come right out and say they were wrong.

So, they didn't fire the person behind the marketing idea gone wrong. She's just on a leave of absense. Okay. Whatever.

Meanwhile, Todd Allen, who is the vice president of global marketing for Budweiser takes her place, and other changes to marketing teams and leadership have also been made so that there is more oversight over how marketing campaigns will be conducted and reviewed in the future.

Sounds clear to me that Anheuser-Busch InBev is making these changes because of the Bud Light, Dylan Mulvaney controversy. What else would it be about?

Speaking about transgenderism, I think it is worth noting that the way the media is portraying any backlash on the issue, they say that the right (and republicans in general) are "fixated on transgender issues," with many state governors and legislators introducing bills that they claim infringe on transgender rights.

Wait a minute. Who is fixated?

For several years now I think the truth is that the left has been fixated on it, literally shoving their cause down everyone else's throats and forcing them to "accept this or else." Join our woke movement or be labeled as a racist, homophobe or demagogue.

They don't care what the majority wants. We are not supposed to have our voices heard. We are supposed to just quietly sit back and take it—all of it—and accept whatever their definition of the world is.

Regardless of whether or not Alissa Heinsersheid is out of a job or not I don't think makes a difference, ultimately. At least not in the short term. With this wording of her departure, I think consumers are smarter than the narrative. They want an admission of guilt, and they want the company execs to be honest about what happened and why, and admit they were wrong.

This isn't going to be a moment where consumers, essentially ignored and unappreciated, now simply go back to the stores and start buying Bud Light again. The damage has been done and the little token of a "white flag" being thrown up in a kinda sorta way isn't enough.

Besides, I think consumers need to continue to stand tall against what Bud Light tried to do. If the "moment" is one in which execs simply feel they dodged a little bullet here, the real message will be lost in translation.

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