Country Music star John Rich is not impressed with what Anheuser-Busch has done in response to the backlash against Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney marketing campaign. Rich said:
“Well, it looks like they’ve come out with this pro-America, patriotic old school Budweiser looking ad with the Clydesdales and the red, white and blue and all that. Well, a little late for that. You know, the American public.
“We’re never left alone anymore. We literally can’t go anywhere without something divisive or political being thrown into our face. And I think when they went after the beer can, you know, something that people have loved for decades. You know, Bud Light, Coors Light, that’s kind of like Ford and Chevy.
“You’ve got people that have had brand loyalty to Bud Light forever, you know, since they’ve been drinking beer. That’s what they drink.
“And they feel betrayed by it and they just can’t believe that now when they’re sitting down to relax and have a beer, at the end of the day, now it’s in their face again.
“And I think they’ve just had enough of it.
“It’s perfectly within their rights to market their product however they want to.
“I wasn’t upset that they did it, but I thought, ‘Wow, I don’t think that’s going to turn out like they thought.’ “And of course, now you look up and I think Bud, like this morning is approaching $7 billion in revenue lost already.
“I mean, it’s pretty incredible.
“I said the other day to a buddy of mine, can you imagine
“Tell me if you think this will ever happen again.
“A bunch of guys sitting at a NASCAR race and the waitress comes up and says, ‘Hey, guys, can I get you something?’ ‘Yeah, we’ll take a round of Bud Lights,’ you think that will ever happen again?
“It won’t. It will not happen.
“I mean, I think this one sticks.
“I think people have just had enough of it.
“It’s like a bullhorn in your face all the time with all of these subjects and all of these divisive, divisive topics that have now bled into what is supposed to be our laid back time, our easy going time.
“The customers aren’t going to order it.
“I’m not going to stock it. We’ve only got limited area.
“I’ve got a limited bar.
“It’s like I got to put I’ve got to put beer and whiskey and vodkas up here that people want to purchase and they want to support.
“And brother, I can tell you right now it is a vicious attitude toward Bud Light.
“They just said, ‘You know what? Enough.’
“And I think people feel like their voices these days aren’t heard very well.
“We’ve learned about the censorship on social media. We all know that’s real.
“And people get squelched out all the time. So they think, well, they’re never going to listen to me, but maybe they’ll listen to my dollars not coming in.
“I’ll just stop spending my dollars on it. And boy, howdy, they’ve heard that message.
“I don’t know how they ever fix it or even if it is fixable,” he said.
