Beer companies that do not support lgbtq 2023
‘Panic and rash decision-making’: ex-Bud Light staff on one of the biggest boycotts in US history
When Anheuser-Busch InBev, the multinational beer corporation, promoted Alissa Heinerscheid to vice-president of marketing for Bud Light in July 2022, she became the first female VP in the beer’s 40-year history. “It’s just elderly white men,” says one former employee of the corporation leadership. “That’s why we were eager to at least have Alissa in that role.”
In a March 2023 interview with the lifestyle podcast Make Yourself At Home, Heinerscheid spoke of her remit. “I had a really transparent job to undertake when I took over Bud Illuminated, and it was: ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long moment, and if we do not draw young drinkers to come and cocktail this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.’” Part of that involved updating the marketing to be “lighter, brighter” and more inclusive. “Bud Light had […] a mark of fratty, caring of out-of-touch humor,” Heinerscheid said.
Instead of ensuring a prosperous future for Bud Light, Heinerscheid’s tenure was marked by a sharp decline in sales and one of the biggest boycotts of a brand in US history, after a minor social med
Queer Beer
Bud Light came under fire this week—both literally and figuratively—after the trademark announced a partnership with a trans influencer named Dylan Mulvaney. Not a few right-wing social media personalities, celebrities, and politicians responded with outrage: One man recorded himself emptying beers into a sink, and Kid Rock, the Michigan singer, shot up Bud Light cases with a rifle. Why? The brand has suddenly gone “woke,” they say, and doesn’t understand its real consumers.
In one sense, it was a typical script of public outrage that is reenacted whenever a corporation takes any supposedly political stance these days. But this particular fracas over Bud Light grows from a deeper history of consumer politics, and it has an amusing resonance given the vital role beer—or not drinking beer—has played in the past successes of the LGBTQ movement. In truth, part of the reason Bud Light (and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev) embraces—and is embraced by—queer beer drinkers is thanks to a historic boycott of one of its rivals, Coors Brewing Company.
As I explain in my 2021 book Brewing a Boycott, the Coors boycott was one of the longest-running consumer boycotts
For brands facing transphobic backlash, walking back inclusive campaigns may be “shortsighted”
For a decade or so, it’s been common practice for big companies to display their support for LGBTQ customers or — depending on how you gaze at it — hunt their dollars and cultivate brand loyalty during Self-acceptance Month. But this year has been different. Inclusive marketing campaigns are drawing social media backlash and even boycotts, and some brands appear to be caving to the pressure.
Target pulled certain products from its Pride collection, citing confrontational behavior by shoppers and the need to protect its employees. Bud Light walked back its brief collaboration with a transgender TikTok influencer, but that didn’t stop it from losing its long-held status as America’s best-selling beer. The brand’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, issued a quasi-apology for simply doing business with a transitioned person, but that doesn’t seem to have appeased transphobic boycotters. At the same time, it appears to have alienated LGBTQ people and their allies.
“When Kid Rock took out an automatic weapon and shot up a case of beer, you did not see anyone from Anheuser-Busch saying, ‘Hey this isn’t OK,’”
One of the more screw-loosening aspects of a reporter’s job is following social media accounts that are relevant to a given beat. On the beer beat, getting barraged daytime in and out with corporate marketing and brand-friendly “creative” that rarely lives up to its call is enough to craft you pretty cynical about the United States’ brewing industry’s conception of itself, its products, and its drinkers.
Roughly halfway through Self-acceptance Month 2024, though, it’s not the schlocky digital pinkwashing of America’s biggest breweries that has me feeling like I’m taking crazy pills. It’s the absence thereof. For years, major breweries have connected in the 21st-century corporate tradition of “rainbow capitalism,” festooning their brands’ social media accounts in rainbow garb and loudly proclaiming their LGBTQ+ initiatives. This June, my feed is decidedly more monochromatic. I’m starting to suspect that our dear macrobrewers — they of the multi-billion-dollar market capitalizations and lofty lip service to diversity — may not be as proud of Lgbtq+ fest as they once claimed.
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From Bud Light to Target, Pride month saw rainbow capitalism dim in 2023
Three major retail companies have dominated headlines over the past several weeks for falling short on Pride initiatives, signifying that rainbow capitalism dimmed in 2023. Bud Light reneged on its sustain of its campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in response to a group of anti-trans individuals boycotting the beer. Targetremoved its LGBTQ merch right before Pride month after customers threatened workers. And, in mid-June, Starbucks managers in 21 states reportedly asked their workers to delete Pride decorations from the stores or to not lay them up at all. A Starbucks spokesperson denied the allegations to Fortune and said the company continues to “unwaveringly support the LGBTQIA2+ community”; Bud Light and Goal did not respond to request for comment.
Six out of 10 highest Fortune 500 companies told Fortune that they are celebrating Pride, mostly with internal events (the other four didn’t respond to requests for comment). But campaigns like these don’t always extend the pockets of the LGBTQ+ creators who need support; rather, it reaches just the employees or the mark itself.
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