John Rich Removes Previously Top-Selling Beer Bud Light from His Bar: 'Customers Are King'
Country music star John Rich says he is ridding his Nashville, Tennessee, bar of Bud Light products amid a boycott of the brand following a recent promotion involving transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Rich told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday that his customers have spoken and they don’t want to see any Bud Light products or paraphernalia in the bar.
“I think the customers decide. Customers are king,” he said.
“So I own a bar downtown in Nashville called Redneck Riviera, and our No. 1 selling beer up until a few days ago was guess what? Bud Light,” Rich said. “That was the No. 1 beer. We got cases and cases and cases of it sitting back there. But in the past several days, you’re hard-pressed to find anybody ordering one.
“So as the business owner, I just go, ‘Hey, if you guys aren’t going to order it, we got to put something else in here.’ And at the end of the day, that’s capitalism. That’s how it works.”
Rich said of Bud Light’s transgender pandering, “It’s their right to market it however they want. They’re making a bet that this is going to sell more product.”
But he noted such campaigns can drive away long-time customers.
“What’s happening, Tucker, is people who have been loyal to brands for decades and decades are finding it hard to stay loyal to them, and so they start hunting down other brands that they can go support,” he said. “And there’s tons of up-and-coming American brands out there that people are flooding to right now, kind of like mine.”
Last week, the “Lost in the Moment” singer asked his Twitter followers to weigh in on which beer he should get to replace Bud Light at his bar.
What beer should my bar @rnrbarnash in Nashville replace #BudLight with? @RedneckRiviera
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) April 5, 2023
Rich is not the only country singer to blast Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch InBev for the transgender campaign.
Country crooner Travis Tritt also took an ax to the brand, tweeting, “I will be deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider. I know many other artists who are doing the same.”
I will be deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider. I know many other artists who are doing the same.
— Travis Tritt (@Travistritt) April 5, 2023
Meanwhile, Kid Rock decided to make his feelings known by shooting up a stack of Bud Light products.
The musicians were responding to the decision by Anheuser-Busch to enlist transgender activist and social media “influencer” Mulvaney to flog its Bud Light beer.
Mulvaney, who has some 11 million followers on TikTok, has been the toast of the left for several months, meeting with President Joe Biden and having actress Drew Barrymore bow to him on her talk show.
Now he is helping Anheuser-Busch go woke. As part of a March Madness promotion, Mulvaney posted a video on social media in which he held up a customized can of Bud Light depicting his own laughing face.
“This week I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood,” he said in the accompanying video. “And Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever: a can with my face on it.”
Anheuser-Busch and other brands pushing the trans agenda have been taking heat from customers, TV hosts and athletes. Since the Mulvaney controversy erupted, Bud Light has ceased posting any content to social media — likely hoping it will just blow over.
Despite the backlash, the executive in charge of the ad campaign, Anheuser-Busch marketing vice president Alissa Heinerscheid, has defended her drive to appeal to a radically different market from the one that buys its products.
Meet Alissa Heinerscheid, Bud Light’s VP of Marketing. She explains her strategy of using “inclusive” marketing to promote the brand to young people. pic.twitter.com/hFpe8YnbBc
— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) April 9, 2023
John Rich is among those proving that there is a price to be paid when a brand alienates its most loyal customers.
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