Bud Light enlists NFL star Travis Kelce to try to win back conservative boycotters and reverse tanking sales
Bud Light is trying to make peace with conservative beer drinkers over the Fourth of July holiday by rolling out a new ad featuring Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce.
The 15-second spot shows Kelce alongside less athletic middle-aged men making grunting and groaning sounds as they slump down in their seats and crack open a Bud Light in their backyards.
Called “Backyard Grunts with Travis Kelce,” the commercial is an apparent play to win back fans who boycotted the beer and tanked sales following the company’s collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
What happened with Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light
In early April, Bud Light sent a handful of beers to the TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who in turn, posted a video of herself dressed like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In the social media post, she cheered to her first year of womanhood.
But the idea of a trans-woman promoting the larger brand, which has typically been fronted by male celebrities like Post Malone and Justin Timberlake, didn’t wash down well with some.
Three days after Mulvaney’s post, Kid Rock posted a video of himself shooting cases of Bud Light in protest. Meanwhile, right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro condemned the collaboration on his show, saying, “Well, folks, our culture has now decided men are women and women are men and you must be forced to consume products that say so.”
Sales dropped by nearly 25% in four weeks, Bud Light lost its top spot as America’s best-selling beer and shares of its parent company, AB InBev, temporarily plunged.
But it wasn’t just conservative consumers that the brand alienated in the midst of the anti-trans storm.
Anheuser-Busch quickly tried to distance itself from the campaign and has since abandoned the trans-star. Something which hasn’t gone amiss by Mulvaney or trans allies.
“For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want,” Mulvaney said in a TikTok video posted just last week.
Did Bud Light’s new ad work? Not really…
In a statement earlier in June, Anheuser-Busch U.S. CEO Brendan Whitworth reinforced that its new advertising strategy will be centered around “what you’ve always loved about our brand – that it’s easy to drink and easy to enjoy.”
That’s exactly the sentiment that its latest advert tries to tap into, with men unwinding with a beer in their hands on a summer’s day and no dialogue apart from grunts, sighs, and Kelce saying “yeah.”
But despite garnering almost 350,000 views on YouTube, at the time of writing, the spot has received less than 300 likes and the stream of comments are overwhelmingly negative.
‘Sorry there Bud. The only thing that would be close to bringing your base customers back is an unconditional apology and a renounce of woke culture!’ one viewer wrote.
“Seriously, Bud thinks we’re stupid. Not addressing the problem and thinking we will see this commercial and think “Gee, that seems good, let’s buy a Butt Lite”. The arrogance is typical. Bud You’re DONE. Consumers are way more sophisticated than you think we are,” another ranted.
Kelce’s appearance in the advert was also met with backlash, with some users criticizing him for being a “sell out” and “woke”, while others applauded his decision to not actually touch or taste the product in the ad.
Anheuser-Busch didn’t immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment
