It’s been a few weeks since that controversy of people boycotting bud light due to the brand using a transgender influencer named Dylan Mulvaney to promote the product while a marketing executive doubled down on how they stand by their promotion. This generated a boycott of the product that the company hasn’t been able to recover from yet it seems. Since then, the company has tried to create different advertisements, distance themselves from the Dylan Mulvaney usage and even placed some executives on leave.
What was interesting to think here is whether or not they will now lose all support by not supporting at least one side. For example, implying that hiring Dylan Mulvaney was not officially approved by the very top of the company as an example would make people who support the person not want to support the product and the trust with its original audience can potentially be damaged beyond repair. So should they have actually went all in for one side per se and at least salvage something to rebuild on?
I’m not sure that I can think of another brand at the moment where a boycott had this much of an immediate impact as well.