Bud Light Super Bowl Commercial Falls Flat as Trans Ad Fallout Lingers

Anheuser-Busch InBev, for $16 million worth of airtime in Super Bowl LIX, is pandering hard to men who were once their core consumers. The 60-second commercial is shameless, all but begging “bros” to forget Bud’s partnering with a trans influencer in 2023 and Make Bud Light Great Again.“Big Men on Cul-de-Sac know how to get the party started,” Bud Light wrote with a post of their commercial on X, “and that’s exactly what they’re doing.” The accompanying video has been viewed more than 825,000 times and has people talking. What they’re saying, however, doesn’t speak of success.“The beer business has passed Bud Light by,” one long-time suds salesman, David Hamilton, tells the Sun, describing a market shift from Budweiser products to seltzers and craft offerings. “This scripted, boring commercial isn’t going to help. It’s time to come up with new marketing.”The “Big Man” ad aims to be a throwback to classic Budweiser campaigns. The Bud Light Frogs, “Wassup” guys, Puppy Bowl, and the donkey who dreamed of joining the iconic Clydesdales were all pop culture phenomena with universal appeal.That wasn’t the case in 2023 when Budweiser joined the corporate trend of inserting politics into commercials. Serving up the face of a transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, on promotional cans, and then backing off, spurred boycotts from all sides.Bud Light, America’s best-selling beer at the time, saw generations of goodwill go swirling down the drain. It’s now third behind Modelo Especial and Michelob Ultra. To regain market share, Bud Light launched the new commercial with the same, old view of what moves customers to buy.“Big Men” features a rapper, Austin Post, who performs under the name “Post Malone,” and the comedian fired by “Saturday Night Live” for jokes deemed racist, Shane Gillis. An NFL Hall of Famer, Peyton Manning, dials the testosterone level up to 11. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.The resulting 60-second spot is more what people at Madison Avenue firms imagine life is like in the suburbs than anything you’d see on Mulberry Street. The neighbor whose “lame party” Messers Post and Gillis seek to “save” is a sitcom foil, a mewling quim you’re not likely to meet at a block party.“The Power of Love,” by 1980s icons Huey Lewis & The News — as inoffensive a band as can be imagined — provides the soundtrack for the mayhem that follows. That’s Bud Light’s depiction of suburbia: Soft rock, watery beer, and man-children obsessed with grilling, smokers, and driving lawnmowers through fences.To invite people to the party, Messers Post and Gillis launch beer cans out of leaf blowers into nearby houses. Imagine Bud Light’s ad department huddling with the suits in legal, wondering if the benefit of sparking a TikTok trend is worth the legal liability of those who try this at home.The cans launched in the ad hit doors and siding hard — causing any homeowner to wince — yet remain intact. At no small risk to hibernating chipmunks, this columnist set out to replicate the stunt. The cans didn’t travel far enough for fresh downs on 4th and inches. They fell with a kerplunk and exploded.Since ad executives take great pains to illustrate “diversity,” it’s worth noting that Black actors show up only in a few frames of “Big Men” and are relegated to the background. Those with complexions even as swarthy as a Southern European are absent from this 1950s, redlined neighborhood.Asians, the group Mr. Gillis joked about, resulting in his firing from “SNL,” are represented by one neighbor. For Mr. Post’s part, many in Hip Hop refer to him as a “culture vulture” for pursuing a career in a Black-dominated sphere. The casting of these two men was by design.Cries of racism and cultural appropriation are often exploited for clicks. But in this instance, it’s worth asking if Bud Light’s ad executives decided to capitalize on those complaints, conflating the concept of manliness and Americana with excluding people of color from the world of beer.Expect “Big Men” to generate social media frothing, but to leave viewers with a bad aftertaste — reminding them of why they left Bud Light behind rather than inviting them to return to it as their default beverage of choice.

Bud Light Super Bowl Commercial Falls Flat as Trans Ad Fallout Lingers

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