An heir to the Anheuser-Busch fortune said the company’s disastrous marketing campaign featuring transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney, a move that led to massive decline in Bud Light beer sales, would make his ancestors “roll in their graves.”
“My ancestors would have rolled over in their graves,” Mr. Busch told TMZ’s Harvey Levin. “They were very patriotic. They loved this country and what it stood for. They believed that transgender, gays, that sort of thing, was all a very personal issue.”
A German immigrant, Adolphus Busch, brewed the first batch of Budweiser pale larger in Missouri in 1876. By the time he died in 1913, the business he co-founded had grown into a multi-million-dollar beer empire.
“They loved this country because it is a free country and people are allowed to do what they want, but it was never meant to be on a beer can and never meant to be pushed in people’s faces. They would’ve never marketed their brands that way.”
As a company, Anheuser-Busch used to be a “great marketer” known for putting up creative advertisements while avoiding the kind of fiasco Bud Light got itself into, Mr. Busch said. “The last thing they would have done is to get as controversial as InBev has with Dylan Mulvaney.”
“What do you think of the reaction to that Instagram post, because the reaction was seismic?” Mr. Levin asked, referring to the April 1 video in which Mr. Mulvaney announced the Bud Light sponsorship while dressing as Audrey Hepburn’s character in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“I think people who drink beer are your common folk,” Mr. Busch responded. “I think they are the blue-collar workers who go out and work hard every single day, and the last thing they want pushed down their throats is a beer can with that kind of message on it. I just don’t think that’s what they’re looking for. They want their beer to be truly American, truly patriotic.”
The conversation intensified after that point, with Mr. Levin and co-host Brad Appleton stating why they believed it would be “prejudiced” and “intolerant” for drinkers to not want to see transgenderism advertised on beer cans.
Mr. Busch continued to respond from a marketing and public decency standpoint, saying that the majority who drink Bud Light “care about wholesome things, care about America, and believe that certain things in life should be kept private.”
“There’s just such a small minority of people who are transgenders who want to change their sexual identity that it doesn’t make sense to put that on a very popular beer where most of the drinkers–99 percent of them–are straight people and don’t identify as something like that,” Busch said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
The interview, which was originally about the book, ended with Mr. Levin accusing Mr. Busch of “open[ing] the door” of the transgender politics debate. The TMZ host then claimed that though it was he who brought up the Mulvaney topic, it was Mr. Busch’s fault for giving an unexpected answer.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Anheuser-Busch was selling eight beer and beverage brands to cannabis company Tilray Brands for an undisclosed amount.
Tilray Brands has confirmed the report, saying that the deal involves Shock Top, Blue Point, Breckenridge Brewery, Redhook Brewery, HiBall Energy and other labels. The sale, which is expected to complete this year, includes breweries and brewpubs associated with the brands and their current employees.
The sale comes after Anheuser-Busch’s third-quarter earnings report shows a more than 10 percent decline in last quarter’s U.S. revenue as compared to the same period last year. The company said the drop was “primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light” amid the boycott of the brand.
With that said, Anheuser-Busch’s total revenue last quarter was actually up more than 7 percent, thanks to foreign sales of its other beers that made up for the domestic Bud Light losses.
“In 2Q23, our mainstream portfolio delivered a mid-single digit revenue increase as double-digit growth in South Africa and Colombia was partially offset by the revenue decline of Bud Light in the US,” the report explains.
