Conservatives angry with Bud Light’s pro-LGBTQ marketing campaign have been taking their frustrations out on cans of beer, filming videos destroying cans and pulling stunts in liquor stores.
But one U.S. conservative has taken it a step further by launching a “100 per cent woke-free” beer brand, presumably meant to send a message to Bud Light and dip into their market.
Seth Weathers, known on social media as “Conservative Dad,” is attempting to cash in on anti-transgender sentiment, releasing a highly-produced video this week to advertise his new beer, named “Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right 100% Woke-Free American Beer.”
“America’s been buying beer from a company that doesn’t even know which restroom to use,” Weathers says in the ad.
“As Conservatives we’re constantly getting hit in the face, left and right, by the woke mind virus, but the last place we want it is in our beer.”
Bud Light finds itself at the centre of a cultural firestorm after it partnered with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney last week for a March Madness campaign. The beer brand offered Mulvaney a sponsorship deal, part of which saw her face printed on a single signature Blue can.
Mulvaney, a social media heavyweight with 10.8 million followers on TikTok and close to two million on Instagram, shared a post to her channels earlier this month. In the video, Mulvaney, 26, promoted the company’s March Madness contest.
Dressed as Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, she revealed the can with her face on it. Mulvaney joked that she, a theatre performer and fashion influencer, did not know March Madness “has something to do with sports.”
Response to the post was swift, with many applauding Bud Light for branching out and celebrating gender diversity, but those offended by it vowed to boycott the brand.
The boycott has become a bit of a spectacle, with Anheuser-Busch — Bud Light’s parent company — remaining steadfast in its decision to partner with a transgender influencer, even as personalities like Kid Rock shoot at packs of their beer with automatic weapons or conservative politicians stock their fridges with Coors in protest.
The slickest (and likely the most expensive) effort to discredit the brand, however, has been Weathers’ video.
In the video, he smashes a can of Bud Light off a tee, before stating: “If you know which bathroom to use, you know what beer you should be drinking. Stop giving money to woke corporations that hate our values.”
“And to the rest of you woke corporation’s stay the f–k away from our kids.”
Weathers’ video, which he admits required him to buy the very beer he’s boycotting, has garnered some support, racking up millions of views and plenty of messages of congratulations. He told Newsweek that since sharing the video on Thursday, he’s received “thousands” of pre-orders ahead of the May launch, when the beer will be available for delivery.
“I’d never seen anything like this, and I’ve been in e-commerce for years,” he told the outlet. “We got restaurants, bars, military bases, everything you can imagine, all over America—and even internationally, we got requests from Europe, Canada, and somewhere else, I can’t remember.”
He’s also being panned viciously online, with many mocking him for his effort.
“How is this not a parody,” wrote one Twitter user.
Others remarked that the production and tone make Weather’s video feel reminiscent of a late-night comedy sketch.
Either way, Weathers has his work cut out for him in the alcoholic beverage space if he really wants to eat into Bud Light’s sales. Right now, with delivery, it will cost customers US$35 for a six-pack of his ale, which is more than four times the cost of a six-pack of Bud Light in the U.S.
Experts also say Weathers might be in violation of the Illinois state laws, where the beer is being manufactured, canned and distributed.
According to industry experts who spoke to the website Crain’s Chicago Business, Illinois has laws in place that ban breweries from selling directly to consumers, which would put a major damper on Weathers’ plan to ship directly to customers.
The site also reports that Illinois requires its brewers to register their labels and become licensed beer retailers before they can sell their products in the state.
“It’s highly unlikely that they will be able to gain the proper licensing in time,” Ray Stout, the executive director of the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild, told the business newspaper.
Stout also told the paper that there’s a lot of doubt in his guild, saying that none of the group’s brewers are working with Ultra Right, as far as he can tell.
“People think this is kind of a hoax,” he added. “There’s nothing pointing to it being real.”