Bud Light’s ESG-Driven Marketing Blunder

Unless you’ve been hibernating under a rock or away visiting another planet, you’ve heard about the marketing fiasco at Bud Light. Newsworthy corporate marketing controversies like the one that has befallen Bud Light seem to be occurring more frequently than in the past. Decades ago, an Edsel or a New Taste of Coke would roll out once every five or ten years. Today, corporate America seems to be springing Edsels on their once-loyal customers at a pace of two or three a year. It is clearly not by happenstance. In the past, when a marketing campaign staged a faceplant, it was because customers rejected the product. Today, it happens because customers reject the message. What are these corporate marketing messages and why are they being so frequently rejected? The causes of this phenomenon arise from two relatively recent developments in the corporate landscape: (1) companies willingly or unwillingly are investing an unwarranted degree of consideration to what are called Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) concerns, particularly those in the Social realm, and (2) corporations themselves have become far more politicized than in the past, as graduates from elite universities that are monocultural hothouses of identity politics, left wing indoctrination, and cultural controversy fill the ranks of middle and upper management.