Bud Light Gets Ratioed Into Next Week Over Clueless July 4th Tweet

I think that whoever is behind the Bud Light Twitter account probably should have just taken the day off on July 4th — maybe just tweeted, “Happy Independence Day!” and gone home to be with their family.

But we’ve seen that the company’s marketing folks seem to have big issues — they keep stepping in it, again and again, not knowing how to read the room or what Americans are thinking about them.

Over the holiday weekend, Bud Light tried to recover with rebates that made the beer free, and one distributor noted that Bud Light was selling cheaper than water. It wasn’t that people weren’t buying beer — it was they were specifically rejecting Bud Light.

Bud also put out a new ad featuring Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce and other men grunting. The company went from endorsing a transgender influencer’s “days of girlhood” to trying to get customers back by depicting men as non-verbal, grunting characters. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that approach wasn’t going to work out very well. Is this what they truly think of men? But I suppose if they don’t understand women, they don’t understand men either. As I reported, many people rejected the ad as yet another desperate and out-of-touch move by Bud Light to save themselves.

The company posted several tweets regarding the holiday.

It’s 4th of July weekend, enjoy some beer 🍻 pic.twitter.com/bylW1HIcwX

— Bud Light (@budlight) June 30, 2023

“It’s 4th of July weekend, enjoy some beer,” read one. That’s probably not too much of a problem.

But then came this one, which, considering the controversy that kicked off the boycott, is a bit of a jaw-dropper.

Never underestimate the power of a makeshift mister. Happy 4th everyone 🍺 pic.twitter.com/fIl6w0GYIH

— Bud Light (@budlight) July 4, 2023

“Never underestimate the power of a makeshift mister. Happy 4th everyone,” the tweet read.

Didn’t anyone in authority at Bud Light look at this and consider how it might sound? I guess not, which shows the big problem here. The boycott started from Bud Light’s endorsement of someone who was being a “makeshift” girl. Someone who was pretending to be a little girl, mocking girls and women in the process. This is what they’re putting out after they fired their marketing heads and evaluated what was going on. They need to do another re-evaluation because they’re just not getting it. Their “makeshift” mister blunder cost them billions. Not to mention no real mention of the significance of the holiday there or what it means to most Americans. Hint, Bud Light: It’s not about misters.

All the company had to do at the outset was say: “We’re sorry. We were wrong.” Do some kind of real outreach to their customers. But they can’t get there either because they don’t even understand what the issues are and/or they just can’t divorce themselves from the ESG narrative.

Either way, their marketing and social media folks seem to have no idea how to address all this. One of the biggest days for beer, and they completely blew it with their take.

That prompted many comments from Americans about the clueless tweet. Bud Light got ratioed into next week with a flood of replies.