NFL Star Roasted After Appearing in New Bud Light Commercial: 'Looks Desperate for Money'
NFL star Travis Kelce is not gaining any new friends, to say the least, after his decision to join a new advertisement campaign for the embattled beer brand Bud Light.
Bud Light is still desperately trying to pull out of the hole it has dug for itself after its disastrous partnership with mincing transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. And just ahead of the Independence Day weekend, Bud Light introduced a short commercial featuring Kelce, some dad types, and grunting.
The 15-second ad shows middle-aged men grunting and sighing as they sit down in lawn chairs to enjoy a can of Bud Light and ends with Kelce smiling into the camera and nodding his head yes.
The ad, titled, “Backyard Grunts,” was released to Youtube on Sunday.
But Kelce is facing a barrage of jeers for his partnering with Bud Light. Fans are wondering just why the Kansas City Chiefs player would pull such a stunt.
I support Kelce as a KC receiver for Mahomes but he looks desperate for money to stoop to do commercials for Bud light.
— rodney durrett (@DurrettRodney) July 3, 2023
Bud light is now down 28% and continuing to back slide. This won’t help much.
— Justin Kase (@justinkase79) July 3, 2023
Trying to win their audience back I see
— Leedle Leedle Lee (@TreyBayBay_25) July 3, 2023
One Twitter user noticed that Kelce isn’t even holding a can of Bud Light at the end of the commercial.
They paid the man to not even pick it up😂😂
— Steve ☀️ (@Trashed_RC) July 2, 2023
Bud Light has already tried and failed to re-position itself as the beer for the average American in the wake of its ill-fated and short-lived partnership with the over-the-top TikTok influencer Mulvaney, who burst into the public eye documenting his “transition” to a woman in a series of videos called “365 Days of Girlhood.”
Just as the Mulvaney deal was blowing up into a boycott of the beer, Bud rushed out one badly-received patriotic ad after another, usually filled with flags, real Americans, cars and trucks, and even the Budweiser Clydesdales.
In May, the beer tried another ad showing young adults enjoying a beer in a rainstorm with the tagline “easy to enjoy.” Then, late in June, the company pushed out another one showing various regular Americans having summer mishaps and ended the ad with the line, “easy to summer.”
None of these were received well by potential customers, with detractors even saying Bud Light was calling Americans fools and hicks in one of the ads. It all led to Bud Light executives lamenting the “divisive debates” in the U.S. that was ignoring the fact that Bud Light is only about “bringing people together.”
“It’s tough to see the controversial and divisive debates that have been happening in the U.S. in the last couple of weeks involving lots of brands and companies, including and especially Bud Light,” global chief marketing officer of AB Inbev, Marcel Marcondes, told the trade publication AdAge at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity late last month.
“It’s tough exactly because what we do is all about bringing people together.”
The company’s deal with Mulvaney, which was posted with the message “Cheers to 365 Days of Girlhood,” caused a backlash that resulted in the brand losing $27 billion in market value, according to the New York Post.
The massive and spontaneous boycott soon enough led to beer brand Modelo toppling Bud Light from its No. 1 position in sales.
At this point, Bud Light is like the plague. No one wants it and everyone wants to avoid it. So, Kelce didn’t do himself any favors at all with this deal.
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