I kinda think beer should be marketed to the customers. Once you say “many liberal drinkers of Bud Lite would switch beers”, it’s more difficult for Marketing to figure out what to do.
All of them?
Did Bud send individual picture cans to any other “influencers”? If they did, I haven’t (casually) heard of them. If they didn’t, it seems kinda weird to send just the one.
Exactly. I can articulate reasons I’d be upset that a company was marketing its product to the Proud Boys or MAGA people. What’s the reason we shouldn’t market to LGBTQ+? (can they answer without saying “woke?”)
Of course. How you target your adds to the customers makes a big difference.
So what would be an effective way to target the LGBTQ+ community?
It’s even better! It’s a 36 pack, same numbers. Yes, I am participating bigly! You can apply for multiple rebates on different email accounts. It’s all over the phone, so I have to have my kid do it for me.
Almost Free Beer! 
I don’t know. I’m more of a scientist. Why not just be more general. It doesn’t seem like that kind of detail should matter.
Almost free, almost beer.
By “general” do you mean the majority of the populace?
By general I mean not specific to a segment of the population. I don’t have a better answer than that.
The NYT article I linked to showed thirty-packs. The article even said, “Next to 30-packs of Miller Lite, on sale for $24.99, sat a stack of Bud Light. A large banner above it noted that, after a rebate, a 30-pack cost a mere $8.99.”
So, advertise beer to non beer drinkers!
No! Wine drinkers.
That was the point of my question to Sam upthread. How do you not market to a specific segment, in today’s atmosphere?
Used to be, showing an advert with a white man with his white wife and their two white kids was a generic ad.
Now, it’s seen, with reason in my opinion, as marketing to a specific segment of the population. Non-whites, non-straights might say, with reason: “That company doesn’t want me as a customer.”
So now you see ads with mixed race couples. and sometimes, oh so discreetly, same-sex couples who, if you are open to that thing, you might say they have a relationship deeper than mere friendship. Are those ads marketing to specific sectors of the population? Sure, but the reason is simple: to make money for the business, whose product is being touted.
For all the chatter I’ve seen about being lectured to by companies, the reason for those ads is to make money. Bud execs might say, “the male hunting and fishing sector is stagnant. We’ve got to expand our customer base”. And Bud marketers would say, “To do that, we have to have ads that show a more diverse group of people who drink Bud. If we keep using the generic white couple, we won’t expand.” And the Bud execs say, “If that sells more beer, great!”
But now Bud execs are being told that they can’t expand their market base, even if they see market opportunities. Part of their current market base will desert them if they try to expand their market. And others won’t buy their beer because Bud has caved to a bigoted group.
(Note that none of this discussion involves the actual merits of Bud Light as a beer. 
)
There are limits to how one can market beer. But I assume you can’t or shouldn’t show people actually drinking it, or drinking it in great quantity, or driving, etc.
So you want to evoke fun settings where people, being the target audiences, normally drink which are broadly associated with pleasure. Rock concerts. Baseball games. Relaxing on the beach. Presumably attractive people whom many different potential audiences identify with, or would like to be, or would like to be with, or who might realistically stomach the swill in question.
“Forgive me! Mein English! It is inelegant! How do you say this? Your beer. It is like… swill… to us. Is that how you say? Swill?
I suspect because the people putting money into publicizing this want to start by taking on one or two companies at a time. Trying to get people worked up enough to stop buying from nearly everybody at once probably isn’t going to work. Getting them all worked up about Bud Light this year, then maybe Starbucks next year, then maybe Walmart or Disney the year after – that might work.
And I also suspect that this, for the people providing the funding for the fuss, isn’t really about LGBQT issues at all. I suspect it’s about keeping people worked up enough to vote a certain way. They’re saying ‘Bud’s trying to manipulate you!’ – and hoping their audience doesn’t notice who’s actually doing the manipulating.
Not possible.
Anybody they show in an ad, or give a can of beer to, is a member of multiple segments of the population: the segment that’s their gender, that’s their age, that’s their perceived race/ethnic group, that’s their politics, that’s whether they live in a city or a suburb or farm country or way back in the woods, that’s whether they live in California or Iowa or Kentucky, that’s their economic level, that’s their educational level, that’s their type of work, that goes hunting, that doesn’t go hunting, that’s vegan, that’s omnivorous –
You absolutely cannot show anybody who isn’t specific to multiple segments of the population.
Is the assumption that many different potential audiences can all identify with straight white people, but that straight white people can’t possibly identify with anybody else? Because that seems to me to be an assumption with a whole lot of problems.
Starbucks being Satanists because the holiday cup wasn’t Jesusy enough is an annual event (Hi Josh Feuerstein!) and Disney’s been a target for years.
This thing just got more attention, there’s plenty out there but you have to know where to look.
As I said above, and again, in my view it is in the best interest of most businesses to show a diverse group of people enjoying their product, which ideally includes someone any potential customer can identify with as described. Any more limiting assumption is incorrect, and in no way correctly characterizes my words, thoughts or meaning. So I believe answer to your assumption is a simple no.
What time is it?