Mellow Seas posted:

Automata I’m sure people said some pretty stupid things about boycotts in the process of that discussion. I’m not loving watching YouTube commentary videos, period, so I’ll just take your word for it.

Mellow Seas posted:

Well - maybe not precisely, but we’re pretty close. You could certainly replace a lot of staff. Robots and a person managing them can run a store where you drive to a window and get some lovely food. Not with the same flexibility as human staff but you could make it work. It would definitely be worse. I’ll give you that.

Anyway the second half of the post was more interesting to me:

You know, I hadn’t considered this and you’re totally right. There is no reason cooking and giving people burgers has to be agony except for our business culture’s ruthless demands for efficiency.

Then it’s a good thing our system of government is “representative democracy” and not “capitalism.” Go forth and change some minds*; maybe in a decade or two we’ll be somewhere.

(I suspect somebody or another is about to respond WE’LL ALL BE DEAD BY THEN” so just save it, okay)


* most posters here are horrible at that, including me, as are most people in the world. Some tips for making arguing not entirely futile: https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2016/11/23/13708996/argue-better-science

Epic High Five posted:

Mellow Seas posted:

No need for the “a bunch of nameless people were wrong with a position I’m just making up that they had ”. Boycotts ended apartheid; nobody believed they can never seriously believes they can never work.

But this is so hosed up. I’m honestly in disbelief. No, this stuff isn’t as important as legislation. But I can’t remember the last time a right wing culture war[i] boycott won. We’re really losing ground right now. I can’t find the numbers but the percentage of Americans who respect gender identity has gone [i]down since it became a wedge issue.

One slightly encouraging parallel is that support for gay marriage dropped a bit during the 2004 and 2008 elections, when it was hyper politicized, but that didn’t stop the long term trend.

I mean the ultimate avatar of bro culture embracing a trans star was a huge win. It’s really dad it’s turned out this way.

Fister Roboto posted:

I wouldn't despair over this particular incident. There are a couple things to take away from this. A beer corporation's stance on trans rights is not exactly a critically valuable position for the overall movement. Like the article said, this was just one can and one influencer - it was an incredibly low investment, so the bar to get them to walk it back was also incredibly low. Furthermore, it's not something that can be easily counteracted. Like what were people supposed to do, go out and buy Bud Light to support them? lol, lmao

It's just rainbow capitalism, and capitalism is inherently fickle about these things. Their goal in this wasn't to support trans rights, but to get people who follow Mulvaney to drink Bud Light.

In the grand scheme of things this is an absolutely nothing issue, and caring about it is giving it more oxygen than it deserves. Focus your energy on something that actually matters.

Fister Roboto posted:

I wouldn't despair over this particular incident. There are a couple things to take away from this. A beer corporation's stance on trans rights is not exactly a critically valuable position for the overall movement. Like the article said, this was just one can and one influencer - it was an incredibly low investment, so the bar to get them to walk it back was also incredibly low. Furthermore, it's not something that can be easily counteracted. Like what were people supposed to do, go out and buy Bud Light to support them? lol, lmao

It's just rainbow capitalism, and capitalism is inherently fickle about these things. Their goal in this wasn't to support trans rights, but to get people who follow Mulvaney to drink Bud Light.

In the grand scheme of things this is an absolutely nothing issue, and caring about it is giving it more oxygen than it deserves. Focus your energy on something that actually matters.

Automata 10 Pack posted:

And it worked this time. They got their scalp. All they need to do is repeat it again successfully a couple more times, and they’ll establish a pattern good enough for the CEOs that we’re going to start to miss rainbow capitalism.

Automata 10 Pack posted:

I didn’t see this get mentioned anywhere, but the Bud Light boycott worked?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/bud-lights-parent-ceo-disavows-controversial-transgender-influencer-ad/ar-AA1aN7c6

drat, but during the whole Hogwarts controversy people seemed pretty confident that boycotts didn’t work?

quote:

Since we are talking about the U.S., let me share some thoughts on the Bud Light situation and put it in the context of our global company.

Let me start by clarifying a few facts. This was the result of one camp. It was not made for production or sales to general public. It was one post, not a formal campaign or advertisement.

Bud Light campaign is easy to drink, easy to enjoy. We should address the situation through the lens of three areas that are very important: Our people; our consumers; and beer. Let's start with our people. This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: The delivery drivers; sales representatives; our wholesalers; Bud owners; and servers.

These people are the fabric of our business. They are our neighbors, family members, and friends. They are in every community in America. We've been doing everything we can to support our teams and ensure that safety while continuing to brew, package, and together for wholesalers deliver great beer to the market.

We are providing direct financial support to the frontline teams that work for us and our wholesalers. As to Bud Light, we have significantly increased our investments behind the brands in the U.S., including tripling our medium spend over the summer. Now let's talk about our consumers. We continue to be committed to the programs and partnerships that we have forged over decades with our consumers and with organizations that represent a wide range of communities where we operate.

We work every day to delight our consumers and bring people together. When we do this well, our brands perform. Finally, let's talk beer. Everything we do should be about beer and should promote beer.

Beer is an essential part of life's meaningful moments, whether in sports, music, or celebrations. These are moments that bring people together, and this is why I love beer. While beer will always be at the table when important topics are debated, the beer itself should not be the focus of the debate. But life is about being easy to drink and easy to enjoy.

That's what consumers want, and that's what we are focused on delivering. We stand behind Bud Light, and we'll continue to invest in the brand to drive it forward. As CEO, I'm accountable for our results, this company and our shareholders and stakeholders, and my team. But life is very important to our U.S. business, and I would never minimize the situation. However, seeing the context of our global company provides perspective. Over the years, our global footprint has enabled us to successfully navigate different types of challenges, such as temporary ban on beer sales in certain countries and the most long shutdown of bars and restaurants across the globe. With respect to the current situation and the impact of Bud Light sales, it is too early to have a full view.

The Bud Light volume decline in the U.S. over the first three weeks of April, as publicly reported, would represent around 1% of our overall global volumes for that period. With this perspective, and in the context of our global business, we believe we have the experience, the resources, and the partners to manage this. And our full-year EBITDA growth outlook is unchanged.

In summary, we are focused on our people, our consumers, and beer. We want to reiterate our support for our wholesaler partners and everyone who brings our great beers to the market. I can tell you that we have the agility, resources, and people to support the U.S. team and move forward.

We will continue to learn with the moment and come out stronger. And we'll work tireless to do what we do best: Bring people together over a beer and creating a future of more cheers.

quote:

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will be coming from the line of Rob Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Rob Ottenstein -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. So, Michel, as you clarified in your comments in terms of Bud Light, this is all about one can, one social media post, one influencer. And yet somehow it's just become something a whole lot bigger than that.

There continues to be a lot of misinformation out there, a lot of confusion. Can you offer any thoughts, reflections on how this happened, what you've learned, and what -- now that we're here, what are you going to do about it? Thank you.

Michel Doukeris -- Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Robert. Thanks for the question. So I think that, to start, we need to understand the current environment and especially social media landscape. And how consumer brands, especially big brands with significant reach, can be pulled into a discussion like this one.

And we know that ours, Bud Light, is certainly not the first brand that was pulled in a situation like that. And as I said, while beer will always be at the table when important topics are debated, the beer itself should not be the focus of the debate. And to me, this is the key learning. So moving forward, I agree with you.

One challenge is what you call the misinformation and confusion that still exists. We will need to continue to clarify the fact that this was one can, one influencer, one post, and not a campaign, and repeat this message for some time. But as we do that, we are more focused on leveraging our global experience and mobilizing our global resources to support the U.S. team as we move forward.

We have adjusted and streamlined our marketing structure, so the most senior market peers are more closely connected to every aspect of our brands. In addition, we are supporting our frontline teams. We are investing behind Bud Light tripling our need investment for the summer, and we are investing more together with our wholesalers in our local markets. Just getting like last week, Bud Light was on the stage at the NFL Draft.

We released a new TV commercial that continues our campaign. The current campaign easy to drink, easy to enjoy. We have strong presence in the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in California, and there is much more to come. And as I said, it's too early to have a full view on the impact, but I know that we have the people, the partners to learn from that, to continue to move forward, and to come out stronger.

quote:

And the second one is -- you've talked a lot about Bud Light. But has there been any sort of spillover impact beyond Bud Light? And also, what are you doing to ensure that the market peers don't sort of enter a state of paralysis and become very fearful of sort of embracing any creativity?

Fernando Tennenbaum -- Chief Financial Officer

Hi, Jeff. Fernando here. Let me take the first one. I'll go back to the reason why we provided an outlook, and we did that the medium-term outlook at the end of 2021.

What is the potential for our business over the medium term now that we move from an inorganic to an organic strategy. And that includes our whole portfolio. But of course, there is one very important KPI, but there are other KPIs that we should be looking at. From first quarter, for example, for the first quarter, we ended up growing more than our outlook.

We ended up growing 13.6%. But this is the organic growth. If you look from a business standpoint, we grew more -- on a nominal basis, we grew more than $270 million. So it was a very strong growth.

If you look from an EPS standpoint, we grew like 8.5%. So at the end of the day, this is our food business, and we need to make sure that we manage all the different variables, all the different KPIs. And the goal at the end of the day is to create value, and that's what we are aiming for. So the guidance is for -- the outlook is for our full business.

And the second question, I'll pass it to Michel.

Michel Doukeris -- Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Jeff. Thanks for the question. I think that similarly to what we just discussed on the Bud Light volume, the public available data shows some spillover effect across the other brands, while the majority of the impact is still on Bud Light. And this is happening, I think, that on the same direction, given the information that's out there, the confusion and the noise and of course, more localized on Bud Light, and we continue to drive our programs forward for all brands.

And I think that one of the key points that I was highlighting before is that we continue to be committed to the programs, partnerships, investments that we have in place, our key programs and campaigns for the brands, they remain in place. And one key thing in the U.S. was quickly adjust and streamline our structure. So in this situation and given the current environment, especially for the social media landscape, that we have senior marketers running the programs.

We have a strong plan for the year. The brands are performing very well in the Quarter 1. The programs we know they impact correct consumers and they move the brands in the right direction. And I think that as we do what beer needs to do: Focus on sports, focus on music, focus on connecting with our consumers, our brands perform well as we know, right? So we will continue to invest.

We are having healthy investments now during the summer across all brands as original part of our plans. But also, we are having up the investments on Bud Light as we reallocate global resources and we invest more on Bud Light. So I think that we feel good about the plans that we have moving forward. And while it's still too early to understand again, all the numbers and the duration of this impact, we need to keep moving the business forward.

And that as CEO, I think that my role is to really get the learnings, mobilize resources support the team, and work together with our partners as we move forward.

Mellow Seas posted:

Fast food jobs are horrible and I dream of a day when our job market gets strong enough (or we’re willing to tolerate non-wealthy people being non-workers enough) that nobody needs those horrible, loud, stressful, poorly-scheduled, non-stop-hustle jobs and we can have robots run them. We have the technology.

Automata 10 Pack posted:

It’s a concern because this hyper focused boycott of Bud Light represents a new tactic by the right:

https://twitter.com/mattwalshblog/status/1643721183928655881?s=46&t=xjoX4EYhjjJHLNhbe-XLBA
And it worked this time. They got their scalp. All they need to do is repeat it again successfully a couple more times, and they’ll establish a pattern good enough for the CEOs that we’re going to start to miss rainbow capitalism.

Yawgmoft posted:

The boycott didn't work, the company immediately fired the people involved and threw transgender people under the bus because they agreed with the protesters.

There were plenty of libs ready to buy up all the crappy beer they could in support but AB pissed off both sides, one by accident and the other on purpose.

quote:

Popular LGBTQ+-owned bars in Chicago have announced plans to boycott Anheuser-Busch beer following a controversial marketing campaign surrounding transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Sidetrack Bar announced it will no longer sell Bud, Bud Light and Goose Island 312 beers in wake of the ongoing saga.

"Sidetrack continues to be encouraged by the increase in support from brands to the LGBTQ+ community over the last four decades as the country's support for the LGBTQ+ community has increased. However, we must also hold brands accountable if they take active steps against the LGBTQ+ equality, visibility and safety," the bar wrote in a statement posted to Instagram Thursday. "Bud Light's recent decision to drop the Dylan Mulvaney campaign, to put on "leave" those who created it, as well as the statement by its CEO, wrongfully validates the position that it is acceptable to acquiesce to the demands of those who do not support the trans community, and wish to erase LGBTQ+ visibility."

Automata 10 Pack posted:

It’s a concern because this hyper focused boycott of Bud Light represents a new tactic by the right:

https://twitter.com/mattwalshblog/status/1643721183928655881?s=46&t=xjoX4EYhjjJHLNhbe-XLBA
And it worked this time. They got their scalp. All they need to do is repeat it again successfully a couple more times, and they’ll establish a pattern good enough for the CEOs that we’re going to start to miss rainbow capitalism.

Fister Roboto posted:

Why are "we" going to miss rainbow capitalism? Is anyone going to be negatively impacted by AB not putting out a #pride tweet this June (which they probably still will)?

It was a completely empty gesture designed to sell more lovely beer. That's the only thing that has been lost here.

koolkal posted:

If over time, right wingers successfully pull what they did with Bud Light, you will see companies dropping support for #pride stuff, hiring trans people, etc.

It seems bad to say that we should not push back on this when the long term effect of allowing right wingers to pressure corporations will have an overall chilling effect.

But I guess this doesn't fit into the leftist "class war is the only war" philosophy.

Willa Rogers posted:

Are you addressing a particular post? Who has said "we" should not push back on this?

Do you support the LGBT counter-boycott of Anheiser-Busch for caving to the right? Because that's the very definition of pushing back.

Fister Roboto posted:

Why are "we" going to miss rainbow capitalism? Is anyone going to be negatively impacted by AB not putting out a #pride tweet this June (which they probably still will)?

It was a completely empty gesture designed to sell more lovely beer. That's the only thing that has been lost here.

Fister Roboto posted:

Why are "we" going to miss rainbow capitalism? Is anyone going to be negatively impacted by AB not putting out a #pride tweet this June (which they probably still will)?

It was a completely empty gesture designed to sell more lovely beer. That's the only thing that has been lost here.

I AM GRANDO posted:

Is this guy anything other than someone who posts all day? He says “we,” but I don’t get the sense that he’s organizing anything or even focusing his posts in any particular direction.

Professor Beetus posted:

It's better for people to be able to see others like themselves in places instead of not, it normalizes their existence and can help them feel like an accepted part of society. It's like increasing diversity in films and TV, people like to see themselves reflected in popular culture and also helps normalize it for people who aren't already gross bigots but may not personally know any LGBTQ+ or POC.

Professor Beetus posted:

e: anyone who goes to work for Lockheed Martin can gently caress all the way off tho

Queering Wheel posted:

I'd also like to point out that in addition to everything else, this "boycott" involved chuds literally calling in bomb threats to multiple Anheuser-Busch brewing factories, so yeah I'm not terribly shocked that they tried to cool things down by walking it back

Mellow Seas posted:

Eh... I have a lot of friends who work for General Dynamics. I don't want them to gently caress off. People need jobs, it's not their fault that our government's only major jobs program is building weapons.

Regarde Aduck posted:

that's not as catchy as 'just following orders'

koolkal posted:

If over time, right wingers successfully pull what they did with Bud Light, you will see companies dropping support for #pride stuff, hiring trans people, etc.

It seems bad to say that we should not push back on this when the long term effect of allowing right wingers to pressure corporations will have an overall chilling effect.

But I guess this doesn't fit into the leftist "class war is the only war" philosophy.

Fister Roboto posted:

I don't think this is a very fair interpretation of what I said. I'm not suggesting that the overall fight against transphobia is not worth fighting, but rather that this specific incident is pretty much irrelevant to the fight, and that rainbow capitalism is not a very effective weapon in the fight. Yes, it's part of a very dangerous trend, but only a very small part. This particular incident was a battle that never could have been won (and if I want to be more cynical, I would bet that this was deliberate), because it wouldn't even have been worth fighting in the first place. My intent was to reassure Mellow Seas that this was an incredibly minuscule victory for the right.

Fister Roboto posted:

Another big thing is that pushing back against this particular incident would be making a bigger deal out of it than it actually is, which would end up making it a bigger victory for the right. I think it should just be forgotten about.

Fister Roboto posted:

To put it another way: would anyone here have even know about this if the right hadn't thrown a tantrum over it?

(forgive me if there are any Dylan Mulvaney and/or Bud Light superfans ITT)

Professor Beetus posted:

I don't think working for Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics is really the kind of thing I can excuse under the "no ethical existence in capitalism" rule. Like goddamn have at least some standards. Not everyone can do something they believe in, but I don't believe for a second that someone capable of doing whatever the hell a person does for those companies wouldn't have options elsewhere. "Someone's gotta work at the puppy crushing factory and I need to make a living."

Sorry no. Slaving away at poo poo jobs to survive is one thing, willfully choosing to work for outright evil is another.

DeadlyMuffin posted:

I disagree with this. Rainbow capitalism is an indicator of a level of societal acceptance. The fact that In-Bev feels like this is a big enough deal to walk back is an indicator of a lack of societal acceptance. These things do matter, and this walk back is a small victory for the bigots, but it's a real one.

Fister Roboto posted:

You're not wrong but I don't think you're disagreeing with me. Yes, it's an indicator of acceptance, but my argument was that it's not a very good tool for gaining that acceptance.

Gumball Gumption posted:

It's a lagging indicator. You need wealth as a cohort to be sold to and you need some level of societal acceptance to build wealth as a cohort.

DeadlyMuffin posted:

I’ll take every little bit I can get.

It’s a leading one. Alcohol companies spending at pride events was one of the earliest indicators. They were selling us beer and vodka before they were selling us Subarus.

If you’re right that it’s lagging, that’s a worse sign.

Gumball Gumption posted:

None of them work in the "where the rockets go down" department