The former president of Bud Light’s parent company has urged the firm’s current CEO to step down over the ‘bungled’ Dylan Mulvaney debacle.
Anson Fericks has said Anheuser-Busch Sales and Distribution Co’s Brendan Whitworth to leave, rather than do more damage. He accused Whitworth of missing opportunities to repair the damage – which has lost the firm billions of dollars in market value.
“Whitworth has clearly shown himself to be incapable of solving the Mulvaney crisis,” said Fericks. “He’s had multiple chances, and he’s failed.”
Writing in the MailOnline, Fericks said: “After all, the beer company’s decision to make trans-activist Dylan Mulvaney the face of Bud Light has cost a staggering $20 billion – and counting – in lost market cap value.”
He accused Whitworth’s response to the Mulvaney fallout as being “predictably weak and indecisive”. Whitworth said that the company “will focus on what we do best – brewing great beer for everyone and earning our place in moments that matter to our consumers”.
However, Frericks slammed the statement for meaning “absolutely nothing” – and said it would “only deepen the chasm between the brand and its customers”.
Frericks continued: “I take no pleasure in passing this judgment – it’s clear to me that it’s time for the shareholders and board of Anheuser-Busch to ask Whitworth to step down.
“I write this with a heavy heart, not out of spite but because it’s important for Americans to understand how and why corporate leaders can bungle the management of once-iconic American brands so badly, sacrificing countless jobs and invested assets in the process.”
It comes after Mulvaney said she felt abandoned by Bud Light after facing “more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined” over her partnership with the beer giant. In a video posted on Thursday to Instagram and TikTok, she said she “was waiting for the brand to reach out to me but they never did”.
She said she should have spoken out sooner but was afraid and hoped things would get better — but they did not. “For months now, I’ve been scared to leave my house,” Mulvaney said.
“I have been ridiculed in public. I’ve been followed and I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
A deluge of criticism and hate erupted soon after Mulvaney cracked open a Bud Light in an Instagram video on April 1 as part of a promotional contest for the beer brand. She showed off a can emblazoned with her face that Bud Light sent to her — one of many corporate freebies she gets and shares with her millions of followers.
Conservative figures and others called for a boycott of Bud Light, while Mulvaney’s supporters criticised the beer firm for not doing enough to support her. In the weeks and months that followed, two marketing executives at parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev took a leave of absence, Bud Light lost its decades-long position as America’s best-selling beer and the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest advocacy group for LGBTQ+ rights, suspended its benchmark equality and inclusion rating for the brewing giant.
