UNEXPECTEDLY! Bud Light’s marketing leadership undergoes shakeup after Dylan Mulvaney controversy. Alissa Heinerscheid, who has led the brand since June, takes leave of absence and is replaced by Budweiser global marketing VP Todd Allen.

Anheuser-Busch InBev has changed marketing leadership for Bud Light in the wake of controversy over the brand sending a can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney with her face on it.

Alissa Heinerscheid, marketing VP for the brand since June 2022, has taken a leave of absence, the brewer confirmed, and will be replaced by Todd Allen, who was most recently global marketing VP for Budweiser.

Heinerscheid did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

As Charles Cooke wrote last Thursday: Bud Light’s Not-So-‘Inclusive’ Marketing.

In explaining her mandate as Bud Light’s VP of marketing last month, Alissa Heinerscheid made sure to hit all of the requisite buzzwords. “If we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand,” Heinerscheid warned, “there will be no future for Bud Light.” “What I brought to that” endeavor, she continued, “was a belief in, okay, what does ‘evolve and elevate’ mean? It means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men.” “Representation,” Heinerscheid concluded, “is sort of the heart of evolution.”

As a non-native speaker of this peculiar form of English, I feel obliged to ask what all of this actually means. Evidently, Alissa Heinerscheid believes that these unusual strings of words provided a comprehensible answer to the question she was being asked. To me, they merely invite more inquiries. Heinerscheid took over in July of 2022. Are we to conclude that, before that point, Bud Light was uninclusive, heavy, and dark? That there were large numbers of Americans who suspected that Bud Light was quietly bigoted? That the country’s bars were chock full of anguished “young drinkers” worrying audibly about the presumptive social trustworthiness of Corona versus Allagash White? And if they were, are we to believe that they’ve been assuaged by the company’s mystifying decision to place the face of a performing minstrel atop its brand?

Heinerscheid’s bid for “inclusivity” has certainly succeeded — check out the enormous ratio of comments to retweets on Bud Light’s last communication so far on Twitter:

Meanwhile, in attempt to put a Band-Aid on its self-inflicted bullet wound, Budweiser is reduced to running an ad built around all of its old cliches: John Nolte: Patronizing Budweiser Ad Laughed off Internet After Dylan Mulvaney Debacle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTMZKlkXP_k

The ad reeks of 1) desperation and 2) an ad campaign where someone wrote the following phrases on a whiteboard—heart of America, hope in tomorrow, American spirit—and then smugly walked off in the certainty we RedStateTards would forget all about the transvestite who prances around like an astonished reindeer.

These scenes look like they were generated by AI prompts.

“Two firefighter bros, one black and one white, doing a shake-hands-hug.”

“Two trucker-looking bros sharing a Bud on a porch in the country.”

“A Keith Olbermann look-alike wearing a shoulder patch that says “LAND OF THE FREE” raising an American flag (but don’t show the full flag).”

The ad’s Twitter “ratio” is hilarious…

“Hey @Budweiser. What’s next on your agenda after mocking women? Are you going to ridicule disabled veterans? Demand to defund police? Maybe dabble in a little bit of antisemitism?” asked one.

“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. #BoycottAnheuserBusch,” said another.

“Transgender rights and inclusion are issues that are proving deeply polarizing,” a Newsweek scribe who refers to Dylan Mulvaney as “her” notes. “A survey by the Pew Research Center last year found that 38 percent of Americans believed that society had gone too far in accepting transgender people, while 36 percent said it had not gone far enough.

So why go there with your beer marketing? Say what you will about Don Draper, at least he knew how to move product.