Former Bud Light consultant talks about Dylan Mulvaney debacle

A former Bud Light consultant behind some of the company’s biggest ads talks about how he feels the brand has lost its way and what he can learn from American Eagle’s Sydney Sweeney ad.

John Immesoete, who served as group creative director for DDB Chicago from 1995-2005, was the force behind some of Bud Light’s famous spots, including the real-life Men of Genius campaign, telling Fox News Digital that he credits the acquisition by INBEV as a turning point for the brand.

“When Inbev took over, they basically acted like they knew everything better than anyone else. They had their own ways of doing things. There was a famous quote they had with some guys at a meeting where they were showing all the work that had been done in the past, and there were a lot of horses helping to sell beer?” It sounds good, if you don’t know, you don’t know.”

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Immesoete, who just released a documentary “Once There Was a Brewery” that traces the history of Bud Light and what led to its disastrous Partnered with Dylan MulvaneyShe said the beer company’s success can be attributed to an ethos driven by its co-founder Adolphus Busch that “making friends is our business.” He said that by partnering with Mulvaney, the transgender influencer, the brand had unnecessarily alienated many of its fans and much of the country.

“I don’t think Dylan Mulvaney’s failure was necessarily just because this was a trans person. I think it was that they did her no favors by actually giving her a bad script. It was a bad execution,” she told Fox News. “There was a story, it wasn’t,” she told Fox News. “It seemed like her face was going to be in everything that was there.

Bud Light has ignited a national trend in 2023 after Mulvaney issued a spot Bud Light Ad on Social Media. Boycotts followed, and Inbev, which took over Anheuser-Busch in 2008, saw a $4 billion loss in market value in the immediate aftermath. Bud Light lost its place as the top beer in retail sales to Modelo.

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The brewer’s problem grew when Bud Light Advertising CEO Alissa Heinerscheid, who left the company after the disastrous ad, said the Bud Light brand was labeled with “Fratty, out-of-touch kind of humor” in a 2023 interview. Immesoete said her comments may cause more damage than the ad itself.

Mulvaney feared the ad would have done irreparable damage to the Bud Light brand.

“I don’t know if they can come back from being considered the biggest disaster in the history of marketing advertising,” Immesoete told Fox News Digital.

Mulvany Mulvany Admesoete Contrasted Bud Light with American Eagle’s Advertisement SweeneyWhich saw blonde actress Buxom wearing American Eagle jeans with the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has good genes”. This ad also led to a social media firestorm, but in this case, Immesoete said the backlash actually helped the brand.

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“The haters really shut down his popularity,” he said. “I think a lot of consumers in that particular case, didn’t agree with the haters, and it pushed it even further. “I think with Bud Light, they tried to create ads that would, again, appeal to the social media bubble, but they didn’t understand their broader consumer, which is, you know, the whole country.”

Bud Light declined to comment.

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