Transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney has accused Bud Light of supporting “bullying” because the company rejected his pitch for another beer commercial after already losing a whopping $1 billion in sales.
During the SXSW festival, Mulvaney revealed that he met with executives at Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev after a major backlash against his first campaign had caused severe losses for the brand.
Mulvaney said he had a plan to win back Bud Light customers by doing a commercial featuring a cowboy and a transgender.
He said he pitched his idea to executives and told them his next trans ad would bring “healing” to the company.
His idea was to have a transgender – presumably Mulvaney – at one end of a bar and a cowboy at the other with a Bud Light in the middle.
However, Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev was not apparently interested and the idea went nowhere, Mulvaney said at the SXSW festival.
During a panel discussion, Mulvaney scolded Bud Light and said the company needed to act like a parent and stand up to “bullying.”
He also boasted that the row and its aftermath had boosted his profile.
He told the crowd that he is now “the most privileged trans person in this country.”
Anheuser-Busch InBev’s decision to hire Mulvaney is estimated to have cost the company more than $1 billion in lost sales.
Bud Light has also knocked off the number 1 best-selling beer spot in the US.
The controversy began in April last year when Mulvaney, 27, posted on Instagram a photo of a custom can of Bud Light featuring a picture of himself dressed “like a woman.”
He also posted videos and photos of himself opening a can of Bud Light during March Madness in an apparent attempt to broaden the appeal of the beer to LGBTQ customers.
But the backlash was swift and furious with customers staging a boycott.
Music star Kid Rock famously posted videos online of him shooting cases of Bud Light with a rifle.
Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Brendan Whitworth issued an apology amid the backlash but never recovered.
Bud Light is now partnering with comedian Shane Gillis and it battles to win back customers.
The SXSW talk was titled “Role of Brands & Media in Fighting Hate” and promised to talk about the “responsibility of brands and the media to not fuel the fire of misinformation and discrimination.”
The description said that the “right-wing” had “seized” on Mulvaney being hired by Bud Light.
It also claimed that Anheuser-Busch’s response “only exacerbated things further.”
Addressing the audience, Mulvaney said: “I did have an idea how to fix last year’s situation.
“I come from a comedy background, it can be very healing and it can appeal to both sides.
“I thought how fun if we’d done a Western commercial, where it was a cowboy at the end of a bar and a trans person on the other (end) and there’s one beer in the center.”
He whistled a Western-style soundtrack and added: “Just because we could have a laugh and to show that as much as these are all very real-world things there’s also some compassion, we all like beer.
“It doesn’t have to be separate.”
He might have a “comedy” background but the Anheuser-Busch would not have been laughing.
During the height of the backlash, Anheuser-Busch saw billions of dollars wiped from its value on top of plummeting sales.
But Mulvaney, who recently bombed during a stand-up comedy set, also admitted that his humor was “a little cringe.”
During the talk, Mulvaney admitted that “certain brands didn’t even continue speaking with me” after the Bud Light backlash.
“I could have been so integral to the solutions but they continued – I think of it like a parent, the parent doesn’t put a stop to something then the bullying can continue,” he said.
“These brands need to step up and let people know it’s not okay.”
Mulvaney complained that the abuse he experienced as a result of the Bud Light campaign was “disheartening.”
The panel was hosted by Kelley Robinson, President of Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest civil rights organization working on behalf of LGBTQ people.
Also appearing was Aaron Walton, founder of the advertising agency Walton / Isaacson, and Jo Yurcaba, a reporter with NBC News who claims to be “nonbinary.”
Walton called out brands like Bud Light and said companies like them “need to stop rewarding the wrong behavior.”
He said: “When you give in to that fear and start to prioritize the negative hate versus the love and the community you ultimately will lose.”
Walton branded figures who criticize radical gender ideology as a “small group of people with a loud megaphone.”
He praised companies like Levi’s and The North Face that have promoted the far-left agenda.
They “haven’t bent to the political hate we know (is) going to blow away,” he claimed.
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