The latest fallout over woke advertising comes from fans of America’s national pastime.
A TikTok video that went viral this week shows empty lines at the concession booths for Bud Light at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.
The video, shot by Luis Tejada, a Massachusetts realtor, shows the usual long lines at the concession booth of other beer makers.
“Look at that!” exclaimed Tejada in the video. “That is every single Bud Light stand here.”
Other Red Sox fans who have attended games have also posted about what they called a “ghost town” at the Bud Light stands. “Lol even uber-liberal Boston is fed up with @budlight,” posted one fan.
The empty lines are attributed to the boycott of Anheuser-Busch due to its use of Dylan Mulvaney to promote its Bud Light beer. The company has reportedly lost 26 percent in sales since using the male who identifies as female to endorse and promote its beer.
It’s a backlash that several ad executives, including those who identify as liberal, say is well justified.
“Using woke like transgender influencers in campaign ads is no different than branding a product by featuring a QAnon theorist,” Tom Doherty, founder of Stealing Share, told The Epoch Times. “It’s just inauthentic and a very poor marketing approach.”
Doherty, whose firm specializes in makeovers of failed ad campaigns, told The Epoch Times that Bud Light, along with other major brands that have used men who say they identify as women to promote women’s products, is a sign of someone putting their personal ideals before a brand’s customer base.
Adam Ritchie, principal of Adam Ritchie Brand Direction, said sending Mulvaney a can of beer to celebrate her year of transition “made their core drinkers uncomfortable.”
“It felt like a brand taking a shortcut toward trendiness and failing spectacularly,” Ritchie recently told PR Week.
In the same PR Week article, Peppercomm’s CEO Steve Cody said Bud Light is guilty of “purpose-washing,” a term used in the marketing industry to describe the promotion of a message without any meaningful way to back it up with the product.
Doherty, who describes himself as a bleeding heart liberal, says using a transgender to promote traditional female products “is just craziness.”
Boycotts of brand giants that have done just that reinforce his and other marketing experts’ criticism.
Nike became the subject of both a national and international boycott after the sportswear giant ran a promotional ad featuring Mulvaney donning a women’s sports bra.
Customers also blasted cosmetic giants Maybelline, Ulta, and Sephora for using him to promote women’s makeup.
Customers also showed they were not sweet on Hershey’s use of transgender activist Fae Johnstone to promote its famous candy bar during Women’s History Month.
The company featured a picture of Johnstone on its candy bar wrapper next to the words “Her” and “She” as part of the campaign.
The campaign became even more controversial when Johnstone put out a tweet targeting Christian protester Chris Elston known as “Billboard Chris.”
Before the tweet, videos had been circulating on social media showing Johnstone and a group of transgender activists punching Elston, spitting on him, ripping up his signs, and spraying him with paint. Elston told The Epoch Times the group also vandalized his car.
Elston, who peacefully protests the transgendering of children by wearing a billboard opposing it at events, said he believes the push for “wokeness” is in for a far greater pushback than those promoting it anticipated it.
“The pendulum into insanity has swung way too far,” he said.
A reversal in cancel culture does seem to be in force.
Hallmark saw a drop in ratings after introducing gay love-themed programming, although the network remains very popular and features some of the most-watched shows on cable TV.
One of Hallmark’s main stars, actress Candace Cameron, left over the gay themes and signed up with Great American Family (GAF), a Christian-based network with a similar platform to Hallmark.
According to Nielsen, GAF saw an over 100 percent rise in year-over-year views.
Meanwhile, Disney recently announced another round of layoffs to the 7,000 layoffs it already announced last month. The entertainment and amusement park giant also reported a loss of 2.4 million subscribers to Disney+.
The slump came after criticism about its liberal content, including a decision to have a same-sex kiss in the animation “Lightyear,” a spinoff of Disney’s beloved “Toy Story” movies.
In it, Tim Allen, the iconic voice of Buzz Lightyear, was missing, incensing fans and leading a hailstorm of angry social media posts that claimed that Disney nixed him because he was a conservative.
Allen was blacklisted both by social media and other Hollywood celebs when he said in an interview in March 2021 that “once I realized the last president pissed people off, I kinda liked that.”
Allen is now on a national tour doing stand-up comedy to sold-out shows, and last month, Disney announced it was bringing Allen back to voice Buzz Lightyear for “Toy Story 5,” which is currently in production.
A longstanding gay pride parade was also canceled at the end of April in Florida, and many of its events, for the first time, were billed as open only to adults above 21 years old.
“We hope that everyone understands that this is definitely not what we wanted at all and are working with the city to assure our safety as well as produce a positive event,” The Pride Alliance of the Treasure Coast, organizers of the parade and events, stated in a Facebook post.
The group said it decided to make the changes in light of recent updates made to Florida’s Protection of Children Act that prohibited anyone under the age of 21 from attending adult entertainment shows.
Many posted “winning” on social media in response to the canceled pride parade.
However, not everyone who supports wokeness is changing their course in response to boycotts, protests, and backlash.
Despite Johnstone’s attacks, The Youth Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) at the University of Regina in Canada chose him as the keynote speaker for its upcoming Women of Distinction Awards, an event the Methodist college states is designed to “honor extraordinary women leaders.”
