Business

Bud Light partners with comedian Shane Gillis after Dylan Mulvaney fiasco

By
Fox Business
Published Feb. 1, 2024, 2:17 p.m. ET

Comedian Shane Gillis will partner with beer brand Bud Light following a dismal year for the brand, according to a company post on Instagram. 

“Welcome to the team @shanemgillis, excited to be a part of your 2024 tour,” the beer brand posted. 

“Excited to announce partnership with Bud Light #budlightpartner,” Gillis posted to his Instagram account. 

Bud Light sales plummeted last year after news broke that the brand had partnered with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney.

Mulvaney was announced as a Bud Light spokesperson to promote the March Madness basketball tournament in April, which prompted a months-long boycott of the brand.

The trans activist showed off cans of Bud Light sent by Anheuser-Busch that featured Mulvaney’s face, celebrating a milestone in her viral “365 Days of Girlhood” series, where the influencer detailed her daily experiences in her first year identifying as a transgender woman on TikTok. 

The partnership led to backlash and plummeting Bud Light sales, which resulted in the company no longer being America’s top-selling beer brand. 

Shane Gillis performing onstage, holding a microphone at the 17th Annual Stand Up For Heroes Benefit presented by Bob Woodruff Foundation and NY Comedy Festival.
Shane Gillis is the new spokesman of Bud Light. Getty Images for Bob Woodruff Foundation
Cans of blue Bud Light beer seen before a baseball game.
“Excited to announce partnership with Bud Light #budlightpartner,” Gillis posted to his Instagram account.  AP

In addition to the Mulvaney partnership, Bud Light‘s marketing VP at the time, Alissa Heinerscheid, aired her thoughts on the brand’s consumers in an interview.

She talked about what she brought to the brand was a “belief” that to evolve and elevate means to incorporate “inclusivity, it means shifting the tone, it means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive, and feels lighter and brighter and different, and appeals to women and to men.”

Heinerscheid suggested that “representation is sort of at the heart of evolution, you have got to see people who reflect you in the work.”

“We had this hangover, I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach,” she added. 

Dylan Mulvaney holding a blue can of Bud Light.
Bud Light sales plummeted last year after news broke that the brand had partnered with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney. Dylan Mulvaney/Instagram

Heinerscheid has reportedly since been fired. 

Gillis is no stranger to cancel culture himself. The comic was hired by “Saturday Night Live” in 2019, but was promptly fired after old jokes he made on his podcast resurfaced, which many interpreted as racist. 

“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL,” the show stated at the time. “We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”

Gillis recently appeared on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, where he and host Joe Rogan discussed the Dylan Mulvaney disaster.

“It became a joke,” Gillis told Rogan. “That’s tough to overcome, marketing-wise. It’s tough to get people to order a Bud Light publicly. You’re gonna get made fun of.”

“There’s never been a brand that has been hit like this before,” Rogan added.

Todd Allen, Vice President of Marketing for Bud Light, told Fox News Digital: “Humor has always been at the heart of the Bud Light brand and central to our ‘Easy Enjoyment’ platform. We’re excited to partner with longtime fan of Bud Light, Shane Gillis, for his 2024 Live Comedy Tour where a good time with friends is always easy to enjoy.”