Aug. 23, 2023 - Epoch Times
12:02
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| As bad as it's already gotten for Bud Light, with their absolutely destroyed sales numbers, with their losing billions of dollars in market cap, with their being forced to quite literally sell off some of their other brands to keep afloat, and just generally with them having alienated a huge portion of their customer base, with all that, well, it's gotten even worse. | |
| That's because... | |
| These letters right here were sent from the U.S. Congress to the current CEO of Anheuser-Busch, informing him that there is currently an ongoing congressional investigation regarding their marketing efforts. | |
| Specifically, the U.S. Senate is looking into whether or not Bud Light's partnership with Dylan Mulvaney was being used to target minors for alcoholic advertising. | |
| Now, to start with, the first of the two letters was sent to the CEO of Anheuser-Busch three months ago back in May. | |
| This letter was co-written by Senator Ted Cruz in his official capacity as a ranking member of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, as well as Senator Marsha Blackburn in her official capacity as the ranking member on the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection. | |
| And in this letter, they informed the CEO of Bud Light's parent company that a congressional investigation has been opened looking into whether their partnership with Dylan Mulvaney violated the Beer Institute's guidelines, which prohibits marketing to people who are underage. | |
| Here's specifically what this letter said. | |
| Quote, We prohibit marketing to people who haven't smashed those like and subscribe buttons below this video. | |
| Now I'm of course just joking about that. | |
| However, I do hope you take a quick moment to smash those like and subscribe buttons so this video and this content can reach ever more people via the YouTube algorithm. | |
| Here's what the letter actually said. | |
| As you and your Anheuser-Busch colleagues are aware, Dylan Mulvaney is a prominent social media influencer with 1.8 million followers on Instagram and 10.8 million followers on TikTok. | |
| As Mulvaney's talent agency, CAA, notes, he is infamous for the series titled Days of Girlhood, which received over 750 million views in less than 100 days. | |
| Mulvaney's Days of Girlhood series should have been the first red flag to Anheuser-Busch that it was entering into a partnership with an individual whose audience skews impermissibly below the Beer Institute's prescribed guidelines. | |
| Then, the two The two senators go on to give several different examples of the types of content that Mulvaney was putting out, which they claim attracted minors as the primary audience. | |
| Dylan Mulvaney lip-syncing I Am Eloise, I Am Six while dressed as a small child. | |
| This video gathered 7.1 million views and aired just 13 days before the Bud Light partnership. | |
| Dylan Mulvaney during day 100 of being a girl at the mall, giving away merchandise and cash to teenage girls, at least one of whom was still wearing braces. | |
| Dylan Mulvaney pandering to teen developmental issues when he recorded a TikTok pining about 300,000 people wanting to be my first kiss as a girl. | |
| Another video of Dylan Mulvaney in Target shopping for Barbie dolls that gathered 8.3 million views. | |
| Mattel, the maker of Barbie, has, according to market analysts, a clearly demarcated target market for the Barbie doll consisting of young girls of 13 to 12 years of age. | |
| The two senators then concluded in their statement by writing that, Also, just as an addendum, Senator Ted Cruz, he sent in a separate complaint letter to a beer industry regulatory body, wherein he laid out even further evidence, Showing Mulvaney's appeal to those under the age of 21. | |
| In November of 2022, Mulvaney posted a TikTok video directed to quote, all the queer and trans kids and teens out there who have been following along on my journey. | |
| In the video, he said quote, I'm kind of honored that you've accepted me as one of your own. | |
| It feels like we're all just kind of still kids trying to figure it out. | |
| Then, in a March 13th appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Mulvaney spoke out about deciding what content to share with fans. | |
| Quote, You know, so much of my audience is a younger demographic. | |
| Then, in an April 27th feature over in Bustle, Mulvaney stated, And so, that is the evidence that they were presenting on the audience side, showing that this particular influencer was cultivating an audience of mostly young people. | |
| On the other side, the senator cited a statement from Bud Light's former VP of Marketing, wherein she specifically stated that targeting young people was an objective that she was trying to reach. | |
| And so... | |
| Using these pieces of contextual evidence, showing Bud Light's intent to market to young people and the audience of minors that Mulvaney has cultivated, the senators here were making the argument that Bud Light was using Mulvaney to target underage minors. | |
| Now, for your reference, the way that influencer marketing works is rather straightforward. | |
| Typically, a company identifies which audience demographic they want to reach. | |
| They then go to a marketing agency, a quote-unquote talent firm, or sometimes just an online portal wherein they can punch in the age, gender, and interests of their target customers. | |
| And then they will get a list of influencers who meet that criteria. | |
| The brand then sponsors those particular influencers in order to reach the desired demographic. | |
| It's all relatively simple and straightforward. | |
| And so, in order to figure out what the true objective of Bud Light was, those senators requested that the CEO of Anheuser-Busch hand over all documents related to the internal conversations that the company was having about this particular marketing campaign, including, quote, all documents or communications between or among any employees of Anheuser-Busch regarding the partnership, | |
| copies of all scripts, including any and all drafts reviewed by Anheuser-Busch, Copies of any guidance or requests provided by Anheuser-Busch or its agents directing, encouraging, or soliciting content from Dylan Mulvaney related to Bud Light. | |
| All documents or communications between Dylan Mulvaney and his agents regarding the Bud Light deal. | |
| Copies of any post-marketing audits that were conducted to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. | |
| Copies of all materials showing the age demographics of Mulvaney's audience, and so on and so forth. | |
| Basically, the senators want to see all of the internal communications regarding why Mulvaney was chosen, what the audience profile is, and whether or not there was a concerted effort to target minors. | |
| Now, as a response to this letter, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch sent a generic response letter, you can see it up on screen for yourself, basically saying that the company does not target minors, that the company promotes responsible drinking very seriously, but notably, he did not hand over any of the internal company documents. | |
| Now, sorry. | |
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| Now let's head back to the studio. | |
| This response then led Senator Ted Cruz to write a new letter, this one just last week. | |
| And in this letter, he essentially gave Anheuser-Busch an ultimatum. | |
| Because in this particular situation, Congress cannot force them to hand over any documents. | |
| And so instead, here's what Senator Ted Cruz wrote. | |
| Quote,"...nearly three months have passed since I requested documents from Mr. | |
| Whitworth, who is the CEO of Anheuser-Busch, in my capacity as ranking member of the Commerce Committee, and Anheuser-Busch has yet to provide the committee with a single document." Anheuser-Busch's failure to cooperate and blatant disregard for U.S. congressional oversight is unacceptable. | |
| Given your broader responsibility for the Anheuser-Busch InBev portfolio of more than 500 brands, I trust you share my sincere concern with the possibility that Anheuser-Busch is marketing alcohol to children and will direct Anheuser-Busch to cooperate immediately with the Commerce Committee's investigation. | |
| The level of cooperation the committee receives will bear significantly on my assessment of whether this is part of a broader problem across the Anheuser-Busch InBev product line and whether changes to federal law are necessary to prohibit Anheuser-Busch InBev from marketing beer to children. | |
| And then he concluded the letter by giving them a hard deadline. | |
| These dilatory tactics by your subsidiary must end. | |
| Otherwise, Anheuser-Busch InBev will leave Congress no choice but to infer this obstructionism is intended to shield inculpatory information from the committee's investigation. | |
| Accordingly, I request you instruct Anheuser-Busch to immediately comply with this investigation and document request no later than August 29, 2023. | |
| Which, for your reference, is exactly seven days from today. | |
| However, regardless of how this Senate investigation plays itself out, Bud Light's prospects are not looking good. | |
| Their sales numbers continue to crater, and just last week, you had an analyst with RBC Capital forecast that Bud Light will not see any recovery in If you'd like to go through any of these letters which came out of the U.S. Senate, I'll throw all the links to the PDF versions of them. | |
| They'll be down in the description box below this video for you to check out at your own leisure. | |
| And lastly, you might not know this, but on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, by some magical coincidence, on that very same day, YouTube made the decision to demonetize our channel. | |
| Since January 10th of 2021, we have not been able to run ads before, during or after our program, and the Super Chat feature has just been disabled. | |
| Every few months, I appeal that decision on the back end of this channel. | |
| And for the past 3 years, that appeal has been rejected time and time again. | |
| And the reason for the rejection is that some channel associated with our account has grossly violated YouTube's policy. | |
| They never tell us which channel, which piece of content, and which policy. | |
| And furthermore, every single one of our channels receives that very same message, meaning that every one of our channels gets denied monetization because the system claims one of the other channels violated a content policy. | |
| It's beautiful how it all works. | |
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| And then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. | |
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