Big business pays hefty price for woke adverts
The feel-good frenzy of inclusivity, safe spaces and a changing definition of gender coupled with an unyielding belief of what is achievable in terms of climate have become a collective rallying cry for big businesses supporting causes that underpin a “progressive” society.
Big business, once lampooned as the domain of cigar-smoking, pinstripe suit-wearing boorish men, is the new culture wars battleground as large corporations put a stake in the ground around environmentalism, sexism, racism, transgenderism and ageism.
Espousing one’s moralism over pragmatism is the lesson in this cautionary tale where a focus on all these “isms” is the basis for the schism we are now seeing at the checkout.
In the US, the world’s largest beer brewer, Anheuser-Busch, decided the customer base for its popular Bud Light category, American men, were Neanderthals needing an education to become more progressive.
Not learning from Gillette’s decision to blow up its razor business by running an advertisement around toxic masculinity with the starting point being that all men are the problem, Bud Light went further, partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney to sell America’s No.1 beer.
Mulvaney – a biological male identifying as a female with an endearing love of show tunes – and Bud Light are somewhat strange bedfellows, especially when the latter’s target market loves the family, flag and freedom. What could go wrong? Bud Light’s decision to put Mulvaney’s female persona on cans of Bud Light fell flat with customers and enraged conservative voters – who are large in number, beer drinkers and not afraid to be heard.
The Bud backlash was soon on us, with videos of US rocker Kid Rock assembling a pile of said product and firing on it with a machine gun before delivering a stirring piece to camera: “F--k Bud Light and f--k AnheuserBusch, have a terrific day.”
Steam-rollers driving over pallets of Bud Light and homemade videos of customers walking past the heavily discounted beer at Walmart have dotted the internet for two months.
The all-important stock price, by which all executives are measured, is down 24 per cent since April 1 when the first video appeared.
The company attempted to woo back its market with the release of a knee-jerk hokey tribute to the troops commercial, replete with horses on prairies. The outcome? The LGBQI+ community Bud Light was trying to woo now also hates Anheuser-Busch for not supporting Mulvaney.
Oh, for the days when beer commercials were funny.
The backlash against the progressive agenda at the checkout is a measure of just how much modern societies will tolerate social norms being tested.
Target is facing its backlash with a $9bn loss in market capitalisation following the release of LGBTQI+ swimsuits for children. Target has since removed some of these products which, like the AnheuserBusch example, has in turn angered the LGBTQI+ community – or Rainbow coalition as some call it.
Australians love to tut-tut our US friends about being deeply divided but there is a lesson in corporations and governments forcing a progressive agenda on communities.
US auto executive Lee Iacocca is as famous for his pearl of wisdom oneliners as he is for his turnaround of Chrysler in the late 1970s. His philosophy centred on taking people on the journey, from employee and customer alike, based on his fondness for Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People.
Former Forbes auto contributor Doron Levin noted on Iacocca’s passing that he would often quote “lesson one” from Carnegie’s management courses: “If you want to attract honeybees, don’t start by knocking over the hive.”
In the Bud Light and Target examples, falling for a plot line that pits good (enlightened progressives) vs evil (ignorant conservatives) is not only knocking over the hive but trampling it in the process.
Hence the “go woke, go broke” line as the bee is not attracted to the trampled hive.
While Kid Rock using a machine gun to destroy a bunch of unopened beer cans is over the top, it’s a reaction to an agenda being pushed on people without any sense of proportion.
Lecturing people on how to live rarely works.
That’s something our funky advertising executives may want to learn before offering their customers free character assessments and giving parents unwanted advice on dressing toddlers.