Bud Light, still reeling from the Dylan Mulvany debacle, bought an expensive ad spot during Thursday’s NFL Draft featuring country music fans drinking the beleaguered beer while the song ‘Chicken Fried’ plays over the top. But it hasn’t done much to persuade embittered ex-fans to forgive the brand. DailyMail.com has more.
It is one of a number of commercials released by the company since the partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney at the beginning of April caused sales to plummet.
The commercial is a clear nod to American country music and its fans, and designed to appeal to the humor of its more traditional market, much of which was alienated by the controversy.
In the three days since the 30-second video was released it has accrued more than 8 million views, but received less than 200 likes. By comparison, the song Chicken Fried was uploaded 14 years ago and has 135 million views and 571,000 likes.
It is not clear how many users ‘disliked’ the new commercial – in 2021 YouTube removed a feature allowing the public to see how many dislikes a video has. Some people argued at the time in doing so it was catering to large corporations that would often become the victims of ‘dislike attacks’.
Disabling the comments on YouTube did not stop viewers from discussing the advert on Twitter. “Real smart, piss off that demographic, then cynically try to lure them back with this. Don’t fall for it,” one user wrote.
“Re Bud Light’s use of Zach Brown’s ‘Chicken Fried’ during the NFL draft to stop the sales dive. Nice try, but nah. Made it worse. You revealed how intentional your trans promotion was. You knew. You chose. You didn’t care. It only takes once to show us who you really are,” wrote another.
Several social media users threatened the company for being “cowards”.
“Just saw your new throwback commercial showing the good old days. Cowards,” A Twitter user wrote. “The good old days are gone until you address the womanface situation. You underestimate our memory, further insulting us. One solid month of insult, and now you think we are coming back. Get lost.”
An opinion piece in published by Bloomberg before the commercial released used similar language to describe how Anheuser-Busch responded to the backlash and accused the company of setting a “new low in corporate courage”.
“Kicking a political hornet’s nest for clicks and giggles before running away is no way to elevate a brand or promote a cause,” wrote Ben Schott, the publication’s advertising and brands columnist.
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