Maga-style red baseball caps, heavy duty machinery and open farmland. Bud Light’s new ad couldn’t be further away from trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney celebrating her first year as a woman with a can featuring her own face.
Anomaly’s “That’s who we are” commercial celebrates the workers who make Bud Light. It’s an attempt to bring the core audience back on board following a backlash to a social media campaign that single-handedly ended Bud Light’s 20 year reign as the top selling beer in the US.
AB InBev execs have been boldly facing out the controversy. CMO Marcel Marcondes spoke at Cannes about the “Wake up call” it had all been, while Brendan Whitworth, the company’s U.S, CEO, was on CBS saying that Bud Light’s audience want a return to its core values of “Good times, good will, and easy enjoyment,” which is at the core of this new campaign.
He also said that AB InBev is tripling investment in Bud Light, which is good to hear from Cannes’ marketer of the year.
It’s an unenviable task, trying to make this kind of a turnaround, and Anomaly’s ad is only going to be a small step on the journey to erase the bad memories. AB InBev probably did the right thing by playing it so safe.
MAA creative scale: 4
