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Bud Light/Anheuser-Busch just penned a large advertising partnership deal with the UFC. The unconfirmed reports I've read are suggesting the 7-year deal totals about $100 million or so.
Dana White, President of the UFC, suggests its 'not determined by the money' and while this is an eyeroll-worthy statement, in a sense it must be correct, because the obvious benefit to Bud Light is that partnering with one of the few remaining bastions of 'toxic' masculinity left to Western Culture offers a promising route to rehabilitate their image and customer base after the Dylan Mulvaney Kerfuffle tarnished their red-blooded, blue-collared reputation.
Which of course means it is still about the money, since Bud Light sales remain in the tank and thus regaining customers would mean a return to their former glory and profitability.
Will it work? I'm personally skeptical. The move is actually a pretty good, and costly, way to show that they're returning to their roots as a beer for the hard-working and rough-handed everyman, since the UFC is honestly synonymous with uncouth, politically incorrect athletes beating the snot out of each other, and features sexy ring girls at every fight with the Machisimo levels simply off the charts. Trump himself is known to attend events and get standing ovations. Tying themselves to THAT brand is actually likely to hurt their 'cred' (such as it exists) with any liberals who might have been swayed by their moves towards increased inclusion. I'm honestly looking forward to the next Sean Strickland (the current UFC middleweight champion) fight, just to see how he might mouth off in a way that will lead to controversy against Bud Light pushing in the other direction. EDIT: It has already begun LMAO
That said, it's not like anyone expects the "beefy men beating each other to death" league to try to conform with polite norms anyway.
Still. It isn't anything resembling an acknowledgement of the mistake, and even if the logo is plastered all over the Octagon and fighter's shorts, all that has to happen for this to backfire is for people to just... not buy the beer. The UFC pockets the money and the needle doesn't budge otherwise. It sure didn't work for Crypto.com or Vechain, both of whom forked over a ton of money for UFC sponsorship.
There's also the insidious take that this is an attempt to try to bring the UFC itself to heel, by exerting enough influence over it to cause it to clamp down on its athletes and 'clean up' its image (read: bring in line with progressive values) rather than allow it to exist as a potential rogue cultural element resisting the leftward swim of Cthulhu.
Given that I hold the position that martial arts/combat sports are probably the last remaining healthy outlet for positive masculinity, if THAT is the goal I'd be extremely alarmed. Not saying it is, but when that much money is getting thrown around, you expect strings to be attached.
I had 'jokingly' suggested to friends a while back that the single best way to bring male customers back to Bud Light was to simply hire a cadre of busty women who would stand in the beer aisle at the grocery store wearing an American Flag bikini and offering to fellate anyone who bought a case. Boom. Apology accepted.
And considering how many buxom ladies with relatively lax morals you could afford to hire for $100 million, I am wondering if that might have been a better plan overall.
I have a theory that this Bud Light backlash isn't just because Dylan Mulvaney is trans, it's because he's hideous. If Bud Light had partnered with Blair White (https://instagram.com/p/CpIx5-lJFCX/) for instance, would the backlash have been the same? Somehow I doubt it.
I mean seriously look at this: https://tiktok.com/@dylanmulvaney/video/7102974306036010282?lang=en
Or this: https://tiktok.com/@dylanmulvaney/video/7285860156548795694?lang=en
If they actually wanted to increase trans acceptance, they would've gone with someone like Blair White. She's attractive and already has a lot of 'conservative opinions' (like progun, etc.).
It would've shown that being trans isn't a political ideology... I think that's precisely why they didn't use someone like her.
They weren't trying to increase trans acceptance, they were trying to sell beer to LGBT people and Blair White is not popular with LGBT people.
My guess is that the CEO and the board wanted to sell beer to LGBT people, while the marketers tasked with the project wanted to increase trans acceptance.
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Is Dylan mulvaney popular with LGBT people?
I think they were actually chasing young women who use TikTok.
I think so too- specifically, young women who are too young to legally advertise to in another way, and they didn’t expect anyone else to notice it.
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