Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney Starring Chick-fil-A Woke Files for Gasparino’s New Book

A new book from FOX Business Network’s senior correspondent Charlie Gasparino titled “Go Woke, Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America” delves into how left-wing activists pushed corporations to align with their ideological agenda, prompting an anti-woke backlash.

Gasparino, a New York Times bestselling author and business journalist with more than 30 years of experience, begins by recounting a scene at Goldman Sachs in 2019 in which a group of young associates preparing for a late night’s work discussed “whether it would be bigoted by the idea of ​​chowing down on those delicious (but too greasy for my taste buds) chicken sandwiches at the local Chick-fil-A restaurant.”

The Atlanta-based fast food chain and its founder, S. Truett Cathy, had donated to conservative causes and other charities and to this day close the company’s restaurants on Sundays to give employees the day off . Although the elder Cathy died in 2014, he left the company to his son Dan, also an evangelical Christian. Connections between Chick-fil-A and conservative causesincluding hot-button social issues, have made the company a frequent target of left-wing activists.

“That’s why all hell broke loose in a Goldman Sachs conference room when someone suggested that Chick-fil-A was needed to fuel another night of business. As it was conveyed to us, the enthusiastic suggestion seemed like a good one idea until someone brought up Cathy’s alleged anti-gay beliefs. So did another, and another, we discovered in our report, reminded the group that Cathy might be a bad guy, a nothing bigot less, but there was no blanket ban at Chick.-fil-A on same-sex marriage, he said, it might just pass the litmus test,” Gasparino wrote.

TRACTOR SUPPLY IS NO LONGER AWAKE, ELIMINATES GOALS

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He explained that his sources at the bank said “the debate was intense enough to reach Goldman management, also an increasingly smart bunch.” The incident prompted them to check with human resources whether eating Chick-fil-A “passed the proverbial wake-up smell test”—which it did.

Goldman Sachs told Gasparino that the company could not rule out that the accident occurred but found “no evidence” that it did. Gasparino wrote that the episode exemplified the “terrible corrosive effect corporate awakening is having on American business and our culture,” which has since spread beyond “the strange mentality of some Millennials and Gen-Zs debating the racism of eating a chicken sandwich” into corporate management and boardrooms.

GOAL: DICK’S SPORTING GOODS DRAW RESPONSE FROM INVESTORS FOR “GOING WOKE”

The book also chronicles a more recent and financially significant example of corporate awareness in Anheuser-Busch’s controversial Bud Light promotion featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Bud Light was the best-selling beer in America at the time of the promotion featuring Mulvaney, who identifies as a woman and had met President Biden for an interview in October 2022 to celebrate her gender transition.

“A brand team run by Alissa Heinerscheid, the first woman to handle marketing for the nation’s most popular beer, decided to hire Mulvaney as a company-paid influencer,” Gasparino wrote. He noted that Bud Light sales had peaked years earlier and the brand was facing increasing competition from craft beers, seltzers and spirits. This helped precipitate the shift to “appeal to a more active rally, such as urban hipsters with disposable income.”

“With this backdrop, it becomes clear why Heinerscheid decided to change Bud’s macho image to something ‘less brotherly’ and more ‘inclusive’ (his words), and how a trans influencer could accomplish this, ” wrote Gasparino.

BUD LIGHT SALES STILL SUFFERING IN THE USA ONE YEAR AFTER THE CONTROVERSY

Bud Light faced a boycott from angry customers in the United States following the Mulvaney controversy. (Natalie Behring/Getty Images/Getty Images)

In early 2023, after Mulvaney’s social media posts went viral, including one with his face emblazoned on a special Bud Light cans as part of the March Madness promotion, a boycott by angry customers began. As Gasparino wrote, “Sales fell and showed no signs of reversing; the fallout began to affect sales of Budweiser, not just the low-calorie version. Shares of Anheuser-Busch’s parent company, AB InBev , they were in free fall.”

The company placed Heinerscheid on involuntary leave as did Daniel Blake, who had led Anheuser-Busch’s marketing and told people he was unaware of Mulvaney’s ad campaign. Despite efforts to counterprogram the controversy with a return to advertising campaigns more in keeping with Bud Light’s historical image, the damage had been done and the company struggled to regain its position.

“’Let’s face it, Dylan Mulvaney is too political, and that was the fundamental mistake these guys made,’” a former AB InBev marketing executive told Gasparino on condition of anonymity because he signed a confidentiality agreement with the company. “’It was like putting Joe Biden or Donald Trump on a can. You’re bound to piss off at least half the country.'”

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The turmoil cost Bud Light its lead as the best-selling beer brand in the United States as it was surpassed by the Modelo Especial in June 2023.

More than a year after the controversy began, Bud Light was once again overtaken in the beer brand rankings, with Michelob Ultra forward vault of it in terms of sales starting in July 2024.

Gasparino’s book will be released on August 6th.