Opinion
Yesterday, we reported that the conservative comedian Shane Gillis had teamed up with Bud Light after the brand lost hundreds of millions of dollars last year in the wake of partnering with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Now, this move has backfired, as fans have turned on Gillis for doing this.
Gillis Slammed For Teaming Up With Bud Light
Gillis, 36, announced that he was teaming up with the beer company in an Instagram post marked “paid partnership with Bud Light.”
“Excited to announce partnership with Bud Light #budlightpartner,” Gillis wrote.
Unfortunately for Gillis, however, fans immediately roasted him in the comments section of this post.
“Bud Light is trying so hard and you sold out, well done,” one user commented, with another adding, “Shout out to budlight for working with the disabled!”
“Dylan mulshaney,” a third user commented. A fourth person wrote, “First year of womanhood for you too.”
This was a reference to Bud Light celebrating Mulvaney’s “365 days of girlhood” last April by giving the transgender influencer a commemorative can.
Bud Light Celebrates Gillis Partnership
Despite the backlash, Bud Light is standing by Gillis.
“Welcome to the team @shanemgillis, excited to be a part of your 2024 tour,” Bud Light stated on Instagram.
Todd Allen, Vice President of Marketing for Bud Light, celebrated the Gillis partnership.
“Humor has always been at the heart of the Bud Light brand and central to our ‘Easy Enjoyment’ platform,” he told Fox News. “We’re excited to partner with longtime fan of Bud Light, Shane Gillis, for his 2024 Live Comedy Tour where a good time with friends is always easy to enjoy.”
This comes as sales of Bud Light continue to plummet, with sales in the first two weeks of 2024 down 28.9 percent from the year before, according to Daily Mail. This is largely due to conservatives launching a highly affective boycott of Bud Light over the brand teaming up with the transgender influencer Mulvaney.
Related: Bud Light Teams Up With Conservative Comedian Shane Gillis After Dylan Mulvaney Debacle
Gillis Addresses Bud Light’s Mulvaney Debacle
Gillis addressed the Bud Light and Mulvaney fallout while appearing on “The Joe Rogan Experience” last year.
“It became a joke, and that is tough to overcome marketing wise,” Gillis said at the time. “It’s tough to get people to order a Bud Light publicly because you are gonna get made fun of.”
“They should hire kid Rock to be the spokesman,” host Joe Rogan replied, according to Newsweek.
“We talked about it last night, that would be the best,” Gillis continued in agreement.
Related: Bud Light Attempts Comeback With New Super Bowl Ad After Dylan Mulvaney Debacle
Gillis Dropped By ‘SNL’
Gillis is a conservative comedian who was targeted by cancel culture back in 2019 when he was dropped as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live!” just five days after it was announced that he would be joining the show. Gillis was reportedly axed after jokes surfaced that he had made on a podcast years prior that some felt were both racist and homophobic.
“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining ‘SNL,’” the sketch comedy show said at the time, according to Fox News. “We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”
Partnering with Gillis was a clear and desperate attempt by Bud Light to win back the conservative consumers it lost by teaming up with Mulvaney. Unfortunately for both Gillis and Bud Light, however, this move seems to have blown up in each of their faces.
Do you think it’s simply too late for Bud Light to ever make a comeback, or is there still a chance for the brand? Let us know in the comments section.
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