Bud Light VP says brand was "out of touch" before transgender campaign (2024)

After the backlash from right-wing and conservative customers following the company's decision to give trans activist and influencer Dylan Mulvaney a sponsorship deal, critics have pointed at Bud Light's Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid's vision for the company as responsible for the brand's recent move.

Heinerscheid, who in July 2022 became the first woman to lead Bud Light—"the largest beer brand in the industry," as her LinkedIn reads—in the company's 40-year history, said that her mandate at the company, from the very beginning, was to evolve the brand and make it more inclusive.

She has been personally attacked for the brand's decision to be represented by Mulvaney, with some critics writing on Twitter that the influencer was the reason why they were boycotting the company. Some called for her to be fired.

Talking during an interview for Make Yourself at Home, a show hosted by Kristin Twiford and presented by household management app Nines, on March 23, Heinerscheid said: "I am a businesswoman. I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, it was...this brand is in decline. It has been in decline for a very long time. And if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light.

"So I had this super clear mandate," she said. "It's like, we need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand. And my...what I brought to that was a belief in, okay, what does evolve and elevate mean? It means 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 argued that "representation is sort of the heart of evolution. You've got to see people who reflect you in the work. And 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."

A Wharton School and Harvard graduate, Heinerscheid's professional history includes jobs at American giants General Mills and Johnson & Johnson, where she was the associate brand manager of Listerine. Between 2018 and 2020, she was the senior director of Bud Light's Communications team. She is a cancer survivor and has three children via surrogacy.

Bud Light's partnership with Mulvaney was announced on Sunday by the 26-year-old activist and influencer on her Instagram account. She put up a post promoting the beer brand's NCAA's March Madness contest, sparking a right-wing backlash.

During the turmoil that followed, Bud Light's parent company, Anheuser-Busch, supported the brand's decision. A spokesperson said that it would continue to collaborate with a wide range of influencers to reach diverse groups of customers.

"Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics," the spokesperson said in a statement shared with several media outlets last week.

"From time to time, we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public."

Newsweek reached out to Anheuser-Busch's press team via email for comment.

Correction 04/10/23, 10 a.m. ET: This article previously stated that Heinerscheid had defended the company's decision to partner with Dylan Mulvaney, but Bud Light's VP has not yet formally issued a statement about it.