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Bud Light unveiled a new ad as part of its “Easy to Summer” campaign, its first big marketing push since the brand’s partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked a right-wing backlash earlier this year.
The 60-second spot, which features the song “Good Times” by Chic, showcases scenes where people navigate “trials and tribulations” associated with summertime, like sunburn or walking barefoot on hot pavement. To recover from the heat, they—you guessed it—drink cans of Bud Light.
The spot is part of a major marketing push from the beer brand that represents its largest media spend to date. The campaign will include the Bud Light Backyard Tour, a national summer concert tour featuring country artists like Tyler Braden and Kane Brown. It will also include weekly $10,000 giveaways to consumers, rebates on beer over the July 4th weekend, and ads featuring NFL athletes like Travis Kelce and Dak Prescott that will debut later this summer.
Parent company Anheuser-Busch did not respond to Marketing Brew’s request for comment.
Turning the page? The “Easy to Summer” ad and accompanying campaign come after a difficult spring for the brand. Conservatives called for a boycott of Bud Light after Mulvaney posted a photo of a custom Bud Light can that the brand sent her. In the ensuing backlash, Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth issued a statement saying the brand “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” which did little to placate conservatives, while also angering members and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community. By May, sales of the beer had plunged.
To mitigate the fallout, Bud Light has taken several other steps, including giving its distributors free beer and putting two executives on leave, including Alissa Heinerscheid, its marketing VP and the first woman in the role, who had once pledged to modernize the brand.
The credits: To produce “Easy to Summer,” Bud Light worked with ad agency Anomaly, which it named its creative agency of record in 2022.