On June 1, the first day of LGBT Pride Month, Anheuser-Busch InBev launched an ad campaign touting Bud Light’s support of all types of marriage. Budweiser loves gays and is demonstrating this affection via a social-media partnership with Ellen, rainbow-tinted ads in New York and L.A., and most visibly, a commercial starring Amy Schumer and Seth Rogen drinking every bro’s favorite brew at the wedding of “Steve and Greg.”
You can probably predict what comes next.
Perhaps these guys are worried that they’ve been drinking the wrong beer, which as we all know contains a patented formula clinically proven to totally make you gay. Whoops!
AB InBev knew this was coming. The Wall Street Journal says the brewer “decided it needs to be bold to reverse flagging sales.” But boldness can be dangerous. It might attract some new customers, but it can drive away old ones. And that’s spooking distributors according to Beer Business Daily, which is reporting concern over “alienating” the brand’s core drinkers.
This campaign is not for Bug Light’s core drinkers though. It’s for those snooty city folks with their $12 microbrews. It’s for the three-fifths of Americans who do support gay marriage. And it’s for those beer drinkers who turned away from Bud Light after it printed what some saw as a tacit endorsement of rape culture on its labels.
If conservative Bud Light drinkers are offended and boycott the beer en masse, AB InBev won’t mind too much. Especially if they choose to embrace their nationalistic tendencies with a frosty can of America, which is what the brewer is calling Budweiser this summer.
No matter your stance on the social issues of the day, Anheuser-Busch InBev has a Bud for you.