Never was grassroots America more vocal about its aversion to wokeness than when trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney did a campaign with Bud Light in 2023. The partnership was utterly devastating for Anheuser-Busch — its stock value plummeted, an estimated $1 billion was lost in sales, and the company shattered its reputation as the seller of the top beer in the U.S. after intense boycotts ensued.
Nearly two years later, people are still wondering how on earth such a partnership came to be. Why would a company whose buyer persona is the young working man who likes sports and socializing seek out a transgender woman to boost sales?
Glenn Beck spoke with Bud Light insider Anson Frericks, the former president of Anheuser-Busch Sales & Distribution Co., for the answers we’ve always wanted.
Frericks explains that the root of the problem that led to the Bud Light controversy, and other similar scandals with Disney, Target, and the NFL, is that companies began abandoning the “American Milton Friedman” mindset that “put the shareholders first” in favor of the “Klaus Schwab, European stakeholder view” that argues companies must “create value for all stakeholders.”
“Was [this shift in allegiance] something that you think these business leaders actually believed in, or were they just saying, ‘Hey, it’s a new world, and everybody has to do this or we’re not going to get the money from the banks, and we’re not going to get the funding that we need’?” Glenn asks.
“I don’t think many of these people believed in these programs. Unfortunately, they were foisted on them by the BlackRocks, State Streets, Vanguards, who are the single largest shareholders in most of these companies,” says Frericks, adding that the push by these asset management companies was bolstered by the “ESG industrial complex.”
“That’s why I think you’re starting to see a lot of CEOs now backtrack from these policies, because they had nothing to do with actually creating more value for the shareholders or actually furthering the business. It was all about promoting a political agenda that I think most of them didn’t want to believe in, but they were almost compelled and forced to do,” he explains.
Anheuser-Busch, however, “the company that lost the most from this whole movement … still hasn’t publicly backtracked” and likely won’t, says Frericks.
Why?
It’s a long story that starts back in 2008, when the company was purchased by InBev, a European company. It was then heavily dismantled by Brazilian leadership, who moved the corporate headquarters from St. Louis, Missouri, to New York City in 2015, where “New York agencies, New York marketing … really changed the outlook of the company.”
A few years later, the “rise of ESG and DEI” created the “dangerous cocktail” that paved the way for Dylan Mulvaney to be selected for an advertising partnership in spite of “the core American beer drinker,” Frericks explains.
To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip above.
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