Miller Lite Responds To Backlash Over Woke, Feminist Beer Commercial: "Appreciate The Humor"

Miller Lite responded to online controversy over an advertisement claiming 
that women are the “founding mothers” of beer by instructing customers to 
“appreciate the humor” in the campaign.

The beer brand’s advertisement, which was initially published in March but 
resurfaced online in recent days, blasted the industry’s past marketing 
campaigns which revolved around objectifying bikini-clad models, instead 
promising to donate fertilizer so that female brewers could grow hops, the 
flowers used as a bittering and stability agent in beer. Criticism over the 
advertisement comes weeks after Bud Light faced backlash for sending a custom 
beer can to self-described transgender social media influencer Dylan 
Mulvaney.

“Here’s a little-known fact: women were among the very first to brew beer 
ever. From Mesopotamia to the Middle Ages to colonial America, women were the 
ones doing the brewing. Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to 
the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis,” female comedian Ilana 
Glazer said in the advertisement, which coincided with Women’s History Month. 
“Look at this $#!T. Wild. It’s time beer made it up to women, so today Miller 
Lite is on a mission to clean up not just their $#!T, but the whole beer 
industry’s $#!T. Miller Lite has been scouring the internet for all this $#!T 
and buying it back so that they can turn it into good $#!T for women 
brewers.”

https://youtu.be/_NtBQWZqaHo

Social media users vented frustration over the advertisement and the brand’s 
nods to social justice and intersectionality. Molson Coors, the Canadian-
American multinational conglomerate which owns the Miller Lite brand, 
nevertheless insisted in a statement this week to multiple news outlets that 
beer enthusiasts should not take the advertisement seriously.

“This video was about two things: worm poop and saying women shouldn’t be 
forced to mud wrestle in order to sell beer,” a company spokesperson said. 
“Neither of these things should be remotely controversial and we hope beer 
drinkers can appreciate the humor (and ridiculousness) of this video from 
back in March.”

The backlash to the advertisement occurs as several reports indicate that 
Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, has hemorrhaged sales after 
the brand partnered with Mulvaney, a man who claims to be a woman and 
chronicled his purported gender transition on social media. Executives for 
Anheuser-Busch have offered vague apologies, downplayed the extent of the 
campaign, and even hired veteran Republican lobbyists in attempts to win back 
conservatives who once consumed the beer.

The attempts to back away from Mulvaney have provoked additional backlash 
from the opposite end of the political spectrum: angered members of the LGBTQ 
movement are now demanding that Anheuser-Busch affirm their support for the 
ideology or face a second boycott.

Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing at Bud Light who oversaw 
the Mulvaney campaign, took a leave of absence after footage of her 
criticizing the “fratty” image of the brand circulated online. Elizabeth 
Hitch, the senior marketing director for Miller Lite, likewise appears to 
have assumed a prominent role in creating her company’s advertisement.

“Miller Lite wanted to recognize that without women, there would be no beer,” 
she said in a press release. “To honor this we wanted to acknowledge the 
missteps in representation of women in beer advertising by cleaning up not 
just our $#!T, but the whole industry’s $#!T while benefiting the future of 
women and beer.”

--
Let's go Brandon!