This is the interesting thing, because Bud is likely trying to take the hypothetical social status gain from supporting trans people, and attaching it to their beer. Anyone who wants to gain status from being worldly or "smart" about their booze won't be drinking Bud Lite, but if this campaign can attach a SPRINKLE of "Well, I have the choice of putting a pack in my cart now, I'll gain from supporting Dylan!" into a consumer's mind while at the liquor store, it achieves the advertisers' goal.
That's kind of why the Stonetoss "Burgers?" comic is pretty effective at summarizing this: sure, it's not about the hamburgers, but about attaching the status and signalling of "I am on the right side of history" to something as small and inconsequential as a beer purchase. Bud is literally telling people "it's not about the beer, stupid. You can think we're shitty beer, but you're supporting the right thing by buying our stuff."
Like you said, students/Lefties who can afford to, will buy better — there's more status to be gained. Students (and other people) who can't afford better get alienated, or just are keeping with the habits they already had.
This will be a long post, but I am uniquely qualified for this topic.
I went to college for marketing, and truthfully marketing was some of the worst work I have ever done. But I remember the very first day of my first class. My Chinese immigrate professor came up and said “what is marketing?”
She the described it as “marketing is the selling of ideas and using a product as a means to get that idea across. The goal is to make a statement and make people believe that their life will be better or they’ll be a part of that statement if they support the product.”
Now this was before I had heard of or encountered SJWs, but it immediately sounded odd to me. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was just propaganda school.
So you’re not wrong. You see, the marketing department’s main goal is always to do whatever they want and get the company to approve it. I can’t tell you how many days I just didn’t go to work, or I’d come into the office late and say “I was doing market research” an get away with it. That’s just how the field works. But many use it to push their agenda with corporate backing, and it seems this time it failed pretty badly
Coincidentally, in 2017 I was the director of marketing for a company that distributed beer and wine. I have literally never had alcohol in my life, but because of this job I know a fuck ton about it. It also so happened that Bud Light and the whole Busch mega corp was our biggest competitor. My job was to convince college kids and older people looking to seem hip that craft beer and the like was cooler and that the big corporate beers were bad.
This was around the time the IPA was really coming into mainstream prominence as the beer of choice and when the average consumer was becoming more aware of the different types of beer and different flavor profiles.
Only once did I ever get someone defend bud light. It was a Mexican dude and he said “bro, bud light’s the best!”
Bud light always had an interesting strategy, unlike Budweiser itself, bud light sort of took on the Pepsi marketing style. Larger than life ads, sponsoring concerts and festivals, Spuds McKenzie, in the 80’s and 90’s it was the definitive party beer and the industry really shifted to try and match it’s flavor profiles.
But today, while it still does that(remember the Area 51 festival they sponsored a few years back?) bud light is a relic that was mainly still being drank by people who were in college in the 80’s and 90’s and then drank by the people who drank it because it’s the beer their dad drank or because the mainstream pushed it as the “standard” beer. Sure, but the 2000’s other brands were considered better and people generally had the stigma that if you drank bud light you either were poor, couldn’t handle real beer, or were a chick watching her weight, but it did maintain the presence with a core demographic. A demographic that survived solely off of the familial bonds. The Pepperidge Farms or Folger’s Coffee of beers. A terrible product that you drink because it reminds you of the time you stole your dad’s beer at 12 years old.
The issue is that because of this, the primary demographic that drank bud light were they people who grew up in stable households with both parents present. AKA: conservatives. The people who wouldn’t necessarily want trans values out onto them. The only other audience drinking bud was the spring break party audience. And they only drink what’s cheap and available, they don’t a fuck about pushing a cause and have no loyalty to the beer they drink.
In essence: they were trying to appeal to those who align with instragram influencers, when their audience was actually the Hank Hills of the world.
I exploited this fact countless times in that job, it’s very easy to make someone turn on bud light when you can show them a local craft brew and give them the history lesson about how it’s a family business, making it even more wholesome than what they considered bud light.
For the record, this won’t kill bud light. They’re far too strong of a brand. But it will weaken them. I guarantee a different brand will step up soon enough and point out of the beer that branded itself as “America” during July was more divisive than ever.