Republicans Call For An Investigation Into Anheuser-Busch’s Marketing Strategy

Republican lawmakers are now calling for an investigation into Bud Light’s partnership with “transgender” activist Dylan Mulvaney over concerns about the company’s target audience while partnering with Mulvaney.

In a joint letter to Anheuser-Busch CEO and Beer Institute chairman Brendan Whitworth, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) asked Whitworth and the Beer Institute’s Code Compliance Review Board to investigate whether Bug Light’s partnership “violated the Beer Institute’s Advertising/Marketing Code and Buying Guidelines prohibiting marketing to individuals younger than the legal drinking age.”

The lawmakers noted that Mulvaney’s audience “skews significantly younger than the legal drinking age,” and the name of his series, “Days of Girlhood,” should have been a red flag to the company.

“The use of the phrase ‘Girlhood’ was not a slip of the tongue but rather emblematic of a series of Mulvaney’s online content that was specifically used to target, market to, and attract an audience of young people who are well below the legal drinking age in the United States,” the lawmakers wrote, referencing several of Mulvaney’s online videos.

“If you look at things Dylan Mulvaney has online, it’s things like ‘days of girlhood.’ There’s another video where Dylan Mulvaney is singing ‘My name is Eloise and I am six.’ There’s another one where Dylan Mulvaney is shopping for Barbie dolls,” Cruz told Fox News, referring to Mulvaney’s social media content.

“These are clearly things aimed at teenagers and even children younger than teenagers, which violates the rules,” Cruz added.

The senators urged Whitworth to avoid their investigation by instructing Anheuser-Busch to end its relationship with Mulvaney, apologize to the American people for trying to sell beer to minors, and direct Mulvaney to remove any Anheuser-Busch content from his social media platforms.

Cruz and Blackburn said that Anheuser-Busch disregarded its due diligence when choosing influencers should result in congressional oversight. They asked the company to “help clarify how Anheuser-Busch vets its partnerships and how Anheuser-Busch failed in assessing the propriety of a partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.”

The lawmakers requested several documents from Anheuser-Busch’s partnership with Mulvaney, including communications, scripts of social media content, content solicitations, and documents relating to the company’s corporate policy for advertising on social media platforms.