Miller Lite, which launched a pro-women ad for Women's History Month in March, went viral on Monday, as conservatives slammed the video as woke, with many drawing parallels to Bud Light's controversial partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
However, the company appears to have made efforts to keep quiet about it in the wake of the Bud Light controversy. Miller Lite's Women's History Month campaign, dubbed "Bad $#!T to Good $#!T," was released on March 7. It made a commitment to rectify the company's history of sexist advertisements objectifying women and to promote female brewers by providing fertilizer to help them "grow quality hops."
Keeping It Light
However, barely two months after the launch of the campaign, the video can't be found on either Miller Lite's Twitter or TikTok accounts.
Instagram campaign postings' comments have also been muted, and no past comments are visible to the public anymore.
Also, the ad's video is "unlisted" on YouTube, and does not show up in search results or YouTube's suggested videos, or on the beer company's channel page.
In the ad campaign launched by Miller Lite to celebrate Women's History Month, Miller Lite used comedian Ilana Glazer to condemn the bikini-laden women's beer ads of the past.
"Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis," she said as she walked by past beer advertisements featuring bikini-clad women and throwing one in the trash. "Wow. Look at this s**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 s**t, but the whole beer industry's s**t," she added. "Miller Lite has been scouring the internet for all this s**t and buying it back."
The advertisement included a link to the Miller Lite campaign website. However, the URL now redirects to the main Miller Lite website.
The best way to view the advertisement now is through the social media posts of its critics, who are roasting it.
It's also unclear if the campaign video was posted on Twitter before it was removed. The New York Post reported that it was unable to find the "Bad $#!T to Good $#!T" on Miller Lite's Twitter account as of Monday.
Molson Coors Apologizes
Molson Coors, the manufacturer of Miller Lite, however, opted for a safe route. The company defended the promotion by issuing a statement on Monday.
"This video was about two things: worm poop and saying women shouldn't be forced to mud wrestle in order to sell beer. 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," a company spokesperson said.
Miller Lite's "Bad $#!T to Good $#!T" campaign was launched a month before trans social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney shared a personalized Bud Light can the brand sent her with her photo on it.
The Bud Light can, which was never made available to the general public and was created to celebrate Mulvaney's "365 Days of Girlhood," instead acted as the impetus for Bud Light's downward trend, with national sales falling 23.4% versus a year ago in the week of April 29.
"Today, Miller Lite is on a mission to clean up not just their sh-t, but the whole beer industry's sh-t," Glazer says in the March 7 ad, referencing the fertilizer Miller Lite will be donating to female brewers to "grow quality hops. Miller Lite has been scouring the internet for all this s-it and buying it back, so they can turn it into good sh-t for women brewers. Literally, good s-it."
"So here's to women," Glazer says as the ad ends, raising a can of Miller Lite. "Without us, there would be no beer."
However, the video reemerged on social media only to face severe backlash from the conservatives.
"Miller Lite has joined the woke cult," Twitter user Citizen Free Press wrote alongside the campaign video on Monday morning. The video has been viewed more than 3.1 million times as of 3 pm on Monday.
"This is what happens when 20-something gender studies majors invade corporate boardrooms and wage woke crusades against their own consumers Another fallen one today — R.IP. Miller Lite," media personality Benny Johnson replied in response to the ad.
While the Miller Lite advertisement appears to have dodged severe criticism up until this point, Bud Light has continued to grab attention due to poor sales and the firing of marketing executives.
Most recently, a second senior marketing executive for Bud Light was suspended following the criticism and calls for a boycott of the company after its recent partnership with Mulvaney.
Now, Anheuser-Busch's portfolio of beers, which includes Bud Light, is not the only one in trouble. According to data from Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ for the week ending April 29, sales of Budweiser and Michelob Ultra were down 11.4% and 4.4%, respectively.
