Whoopi Goldberg slammed Anheuser-Busch today for withdrawing its Bud Light ad campaign featuring trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
The View hosts said that the company’s second Budweiser commercial, which featured the renowned Clydesdale horse dashing across the heartland, was an attempt to apologize to its disgruntled consumer base.
‘What are you so angry about? Beer does not have a – I mean, it’s not a Democrat or a Republican. It doesn’t have a belief system. It’s just beer!’ Whoopi Goldberg said. The 67-year-old urged the brewer not to ‘let them scare you’ as she claimed America was not ‘transphobic’.
The Clydesdale ad was given in an attempt to defuse some of the tension around the Mulvaney connection, according to Whoopi Goldberg’s co-host, progressive Sunny Hostin.
‘Suddenly, they have this reaction, and their response is, ‘Let’s get the horses out!’ “Because horses are so much more American than trans people,” she explained.
Whoopi Goldberg
Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth struck a conciliatory tone Friday, issuing a statement on behalf of the firm in which he stated, ‘We never intended to be a part of a topic that divides people.’
In an open letter released on the company’s Twitter account, Whitworth stated, “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
It highlighted the company’s ‘history and tradition’ in ‘America’s heartland’ but never specifically mentioned Mulvaney or the response.
Hostin informed her View co-hosts that people have labeled Bud Light as an ‘American beer,’ despite the fact that its owner, Anheuser-Busch, is a Belgian corporation.
She screamed against the US, claiming that ‘this country is tremendously transphobic.’
Whoopi Goldberg said that it’s only transphobes that get the microphone, but ‘I doubt the country’s as transphobic.’
Meanwhile, so-called conservative co-host Alyssa Farah Gryphon termed the Mulvaney/Bud Light collaboration a ‘smart effort’ to court the LGBT population.
‘Listen, Budweiser, we’re all Americans here,’ Whoopi Goldberg concluded the sketch. We appreciate your beer, whether it is light or normal.
‘You have every right to buy it, and we have every right to buy it if we like it. Don’t let them frighten you. Allow us to frighten you.’
Budweiser, which Anheuser-Busch also owns, published a new all-American ad showing their famed Clydesdales on Sunday, seemingly in response to the outcry over Bud Light’s association with Mulvaney.
The one-minute commercial shows the horse riding over Western vistas and past monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial and the Brooklyn Bridge.
The advertisement for the beer, which is owned by Anheuser-Busch, like Bud Light, appeared to be a return to traditional ideals for the brand, which has traditionally appealed to blue-collar American workers.
Bud Light is making an effort to expand its social media presence. After nearly two weeks of inactivity, the Bud Light Twitter account posted again on Friday. The brand tweeted a frosted can of its famous drink with the phrase ‘TGIF?’
Despite numerous harsh comments on the contentious brand partnership with Mulvaney, the post has received 11.1 million views and 25,000 comments.
That large statistic is even more startling when compared to the brand’s most recent tweets, the majority of which fall far short of the 1 million thresholds.
Even a recent popular tweet promoting the brand’s March Madness sweepstakes earned only 1.2 million views.
Regardless of the nature of the attention, Bud Light’s collaboration with Mulvaney appears to be paying off in terms of pure brand exposure.
Brand reach is a key metric for determining the performance of marketing campaigns. And, based on the numbers alone, the Mulvaney alliance has most likely exceeded all expectations.
However, that reach is not usually accompanied by a $6 billion market cap loss and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dissatisfied customers.
The negative consequences from the Mulvaney alliance led to a lackluster apology from Anheuser-Busch CEO last week, but the next move for the faltering brand remains unknown.
It does not appear that internet observers are buying the brand’s attempt to right the ship.
Many saw the ad as a pitiful attempt to alter course following the Mulvaney alliance.
‘My favorite advertisement by a mile was the Clydesdales after 9/11. It was absolute perfection. After your embrace of the trans agenda, glorifying a man looking for his 15 mins of fame by mocking women. I will never buy, drink or serve your beer again,’ wrote one user.
‘Is the horse trans now?’ wrote radio host Dan O’Donnell.
‘Nope, you guys destroyed your own base and market because you had to go woke. I’ll never drink any of your products again,’ wrote Brandon Saario.
‘Lol, hard pivot huh?’ wrote Angela McArdle, the chair of the Libertarian Party.
Commentator Philip Holloway wrote: ‘Don’t look now Anheuser Busch and Budweiser but the Clydesdale has already left the barn. The train has sailed, the ship has left the station.’
Bud Light and Budweiser are separate brands that are owned by the same parent business. With the new advertisement, the latter – dubbed “The King of Beers” – appears to be stepping in to salvage Bud Light’s reputation.
Mulvaney released a video of herself sipping from a one-of-a-kind, bespoke Bud Light can with her face on to promote the business’s March Madness competition, and the criticism caused parent firm Anheuser-Busch to lose $6 billion in market cap in six days.
Mulvaney rose to prominence for her ‘days of girlhood’ films, in which she documented her first year of identifying as a female.
However, the TikTok star has enraged some feminists and conservatives by claiming she’s ‘playing’ being a ‘female’ and co-opting aspects of womanhood she finds appealing – without having to cope with the bigotry or prejudice that many women confront.
