Transgender actor and comedian, Ian Harvie, who appeared in a 2016 Bud Light commercial that stated the company supported “people of all genders,” admitted in an interview with AdAge that his partnership with Anheuser-Busch never seemed genuine and was instead about money.
“I don’t believe in the allyship of Anheuser-Busch,” he said. “It’s not about diversity, it’s about dollars. They looked at her socials and just said, ‘You know what? Here’s a topic that’s hot right now. Why don’t we pay this person to do a promotion?’”
Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney was announced as a Bud Light partner to promote the March Madness basketball tournament last month, which has prompted ridicule and backlash from the media and the public in recent weeks.
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The trans activist showed off cans of Bud Light sent by Anheuser-Busch that featured Mulvaney’s face, celebrating a milestone in her viral “365 Days of Girlhood” series where the influencer detailed daily experiences in her first year identifying as a transgender woman on TikTok.
Harvie said he didn’t believe the allyship was real at the time and admitted that even through he liked the message of the ad, it was mostly about the money for him, too.
“It was about the dollars for me too, honestly,” he said. “I’m a working comic actor. I was thrilled to be in the presence of Amy Schumer and glad to get a nice paycheck from that. I’m 30 years sober—I don’t even drink. I didn’t believe in the allyship from the get-go.”
The 2016 ad featured Harvie, along with Seth Rogen and Amy Schumer, who didn’t use the word “transgender,” but did say “Gender identity—it’s really a spectrum, and we don’t need these labels” and “Beer should have labels, not people.”
Harvie also echoed a sentiment expressed by many progressives and LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in recent weeks, who feel the company has not shown adequate support for Mulvaney and the transgender community amid the controversy.
“It is disturbing that there’s no statement of support [for Mulvaney],” Harvie told Ad Age. “They should have doubled down. They should have said, ‘You think it’s offensive to have a trans person promoting Bud Light? Well, here’s 10 more.’”
Harvie said Mulvaney’s campaign is different from the 2016 ad because trans women face more hate than trans men.
“As much as I do feel scared and in danger—I just traveled to Florida, and my eyes were peeled for sure—the truth is that transphobic responses are so much more visceral around trans women than trans men,” he said. “This is largely rooted in misogyny and transphobia combined.”
Since Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney, in-store sales of the beer have dropped 26% during the week that ended April 22, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Anheuser Busch also saw its market value decrease by $5 billion in recent weeks, but Harvie said he thinks those boycotting Bud Light will come back to the beer.
“The truth is that Kid Rock and his followers are still going to drink it,” he said. “They’re going to scream about it, but they’ll keep drinking it. It doesn’t change the taste or the price point for them. They’re not microbrew-heads.”
Two Anheuser-Busch marketing executives have taken a leave of absence in the wake of the controversy surrounding its partnership with Mulvaney. One of those executives, Bud Light‘s marketing VP, Alissa Heinerscheid, was caught on camera days before Mulvaney made her Bud Light debut, airing her thoughts on the beer brand and its drinkers.
“We had this hangover, I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out of touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach,” she said.
Heinerscheid suggested that “representation is sort of at the heart of evolution, you have got to see people who reflect you in the work.”
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She explained that what she “brought” to the brand was a “belief” that to evolve and elevate means to incorporate “inclusivity, it means shifting the tone, it means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive, and feels lighter and brighter and different, and appeals to women and to men.”
“I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light,‘” Heinerscheid said.
