It’s a tale of two companies. One went woke, began to go broke, and now embraces the macho bloke. The other, slow on the uptake, just stepped on the woke rake and now has a real headache.
The latter is British auto manufacturer Jaguar, whose most recent commercial looks like the bar scene in Star Wars. The company attempting to mend fences is Bud Light, which, after a series of failures trying to repair its image, has made a very effective un-woke ad. Whether it can put the politically correct toothpaste back in the tube, however, is a different matter.
Mad Cat Disease?
The Jaguar ad in question, which features MUSS (Made-up Sexual Status, aka “transgender”) characters, is being roundly mocked online. Here it is in all its colorful glory:
It is creative, I suppose (so was, in the same sense, Jeffrey Dahmer’s diet). But that can also be said for the withering put-downs directed at it by commentators and internet commenters. First there’s Fox News star Greg Gutfeld.
“What the hell was that?” he asked. “Was that a line-up of all the previous Biden/Harris Cabinet picks?”
Elon Musk, who also manufactures vehicles and has an underappreciated sense of humor, had his own question. After watching the spot he wondered, “Do you sell cars?”
(Maybe not for long.)
But Gutfeld and Musk had nothing on the very clever John Q. Public commenters. Here’s a sampling from X:
- “If white dudes for Harris had jobs they would buy a Jaguar,” wrote “Rizza.”
- “I heard the new jags only turn left,” posted “Totes WILD.”
- To this, “AGENDA 47” responded, “Wrong car for going straight.”
- “Big Boss” offered his own short quip. “Should be rebranded DRAGUAR,” he suggested.
- And “JohnnyUltimamente” stated, “Now we know where the bud light marketing exec landed.”
A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
Then there are the mocking memes, such as this:
And, oh, if only felines could sue. Because there’s also this:
Then, if the below is accurate, Jaguar’s new ad may actually bear fruit (or fruits).
There’s also the following (though Thelma and Louise’s suicide was intentional).
And finally, journalist Ian Miles Cheong noted the car company’s courage:
(Hat tip: American Thinker.)
After Bud Went “Thud!”
Speaking of the Beelzebub-entertaining beer, however, Bud Light apparently no longer wants to be light in the loafers. (Or, at least, doesn’t want to be perceived that way.) To review, Bud’s problems began in April last year when the company ran a promotion with MUSS actor Dylan Mulvaney, a man who masquerades as a woman. It then emerged that Bud marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid had, just prior, made remarks that Bud’s customer base would find offensive.
Ultimately, Bud Light’s sales tanked. While it had been America’s best-selling beer for decades, by July of this year it had dropped into third place. The initial backlash was followed by attempts to repair its image — with ads that just brought more mockery. But now Bud has perhaps hit the right tone with an ad (below) that some say mocks woke “culture.”
Will this move the needle, though? Some observers (below) don’t think so.
As for issuing apologies, Bud isn’t going to explicitly repudiate their Mulvaney association. This would surely bring mainstream media condemnation and perhaps invite another boycott, one from the Left.
Forgive and Forget?
Other respondents (below), however, are ready to forgive and move on.
So how should traditionalists proceed? Note the comment by the respondent to the second-to-last tweet. “InBev/Anheuser Busch is just playing gullible conservatives,” he said. “They haven’t turned anything around.” He’s certainly right in a way, too. But this brings us to an important point.
That publicly traded companies must answer to shareholders makes them much like politicians, who answer to voters. (In fact, shareholders do vote on corporate policy.) So where privately owned companies could stand on principle, as Chick-fil-A does being closed on Sundays, those publicly traded simply will not buck the culture. And when one does, as Bud Light did with Mulvaney, it’s usually due to a misreading of the room.
Beware the Siren of Passion
The point? To analogize this, I’ve said in the past that voters must avoid getting emotionally attached to politicians. For wedding yourself to one means that if you’re a thinking person (not a fanboy), you’ll inevitably be disappointed. Then you can be left feeling like a jilted love interest, hurt and angry. Such a frame of mind is not conducive to good decision-making.
So, I’ve stated, instead conceptualize politicians as tools that serve a purpose. So it is, too, with the “politician-businesses” known as publicly traded companies. Just as politicians will change positions as necessary to get votes, companies will do so as necessary to get your economic “votes” (your business). That’s the way it is — and that’s the way it always will be.
The only way to avoid this is by patronizing small, privately owned businesses that sacrifice profit for principle. And they’re few and far between.
Otherwise, we may want to consider that insofar as tools go, the important thing is getting them in your shed. (With no tools, after all, building a better world is difficult.) If you can control the culture, the corporations will bend to your will as expressed through it. If you lose the culture, corporations will buck your will whether you personally buy from them or not.
Of course, we’ll all vote with our dollars, and I have at least a few companies on my boycott list. Whatever decision we make, however, it should be done with the head. The heart should only provide the fuel that actuates it.
