We’ve seen Bud Light take its brand and shove it over a cliff with its endorsement of Dylan Mulvaney and the crazy recognition of his “365 Days of Girlhood.” A video then featured Mulvaney in a bathtub drinking a Bud Light beer as part of the campaign.

That’s led to all kinds of people canceling Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch including country music stars Travis Tritt and John Rich dropping all Anheuser-Busch products from their tours and venues. Even some appearances of the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdale horse team were canceled, out of concern about the controversy.

Have you wondered why Bud Light would do such a thing?

Wonder no longer. Alissa Heinerscheid, the Vice President of Marketing explained why she is trying to transform the brand in a podcast on March 30. This was before the Mulvaney controversy but it explains why they’re going down this kind of road.

Meet Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing. She explains her strategy of using “inclusive” marketing to promote the brand to young people. pic.twitter.com/hFpe8YnbBc

— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) April 9, 2023

“I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light,'” Heinerscheid said.

She added further that she had a “super clear” mandate that “to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand.” She said that what she “brought” to the brand was a “belief” that to evolve and elevate means to incorporate “inclusivity, it means shifting the tone, it means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive, and feels lighter and brighter and different, and appeals to women and to men.”

Heinerscheid suggested that “representation is sort of at the heart of evolution, you have got to see people who reflect you in the work.”

She then disparaged the work of Bud Light’s past branding.

“We had this hangover, I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out of touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach,” she said.

Anheuser-Busch defended itself in the wake of the controversy.

“Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics. From time to time we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public,” an Anheuser-Busch spokesperson told Fox News.

If you’re in charge of marketing and you want to increase your brand, you don’t throw the brand under the bus with the main market share that they have left — which is a lot of guys — which is just what they did by embracing woke craziness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boycott on any issue affect anything where I live and yet I’m hearing guys who normally might drink it passing it up and going on to other things. That’s shooting yourself in the foot.

🤣 This is real! I went to
my local store, and she said they haven't sold a 12-pack or 30-pack of Bud Light this whole week!#BudLightWentWoke #budlight pic.twitter.com/lNmZ18PgnZ

— 🇺🇲Tea.Party.Patriot.1776🇺🇲 (@T3aPartyPatriot) April 8, 2023

Heinerscheid is insulting her brand and the people who previously bought it, describing it as “fratty” and out-of-touch before. Does she think embracing Mulvaney makes it “in touch”?

She’s throwing the market share they do have under the bus to reach out to people who aren’t going to buy it anyway in the interests of “inclusivity.” Seems to me she’s not being very “inclusive” of the people who have sustained the brand for many years.

In a previous interview with Forbes, Heinerscheid claimed that “female representation is a personal passion point of mine.”

Then maybe you should recognize women and appeal to women. Not to men who are mocking women and making them out to be caricatures. When you’re recognizing a man for reaching a “milestone” of pretending to be a young “girl” when he’s an adult, something is amiss.

Maybe if you want to appeal to more people the answer might be to improve the product, rather than insulting women by aligning with someone mocking them as well as alienating your base. That wasn’t anywhere in her conversation about marketing.