A long-held marketing maxim was “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” whose origin is generally attributed to circus impresario P.T. Barnum. Oscar Wilde refined the dictum with his observation, “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” Self-proclaimed marketing and PR gurus wax on about the importance of being part of the “conversation.”
Donald Trump, who is the P.T. Barnum of our day, is an example of how bad publicity can be beneficial. Trump just won a landslide victory despite the corporate media maligning him 24/7 since he first descended from Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his presidency. My contrarian belief is that the near universal disdain Americans have for their corporate media influenced many of them to vote for Trump because they viewed it as an opportunity to signal a giant FU to the journalism elitists who likened him to Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.
The marketing people at Bud Light learned the hard way that bad publicity can sometimes irreparably harm a brand. Once the best-selling beer in America, Bud Light’s sales went into a tailspin last year after the marketing folks anointed Dylan Mulvaney, a male TikTok sensation who declared himself a woman, as a brand ambassador. Bud Light issued Mulvaney a special edition beer can with her image “to celebrate 365 days of girlhood.”
Mulvaney’s Bud Light ambassadorship sparked considerable controversy, with calls for a boycott that resulted in an immediate drop in sales. Rapper Kid Rock made headlines shooting up cans of America’s once most popular beer. More than a year later, Bud Light still hasn’t recovered from the Dylan Mulvaney marketing fiasco. The brand ranks third in U.S. beer sales.
The media and pundits, including me, mistakenly placed all the blame for the Bud Light fiasco on Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid, the brand’s vice president of marketing. Heinerscheid’s background made her an easy and presumptive target, having earned her undergraduate degree at Harvard and an MBA degree from Wharton. Comments Heinerscheid made during a podcast where she dissed her marketing predecessors responsible for making Bud Light America’s premier beer only added to her elitist and arrogant aura.
“I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light,‘” Heinerscheid said on the Make Yourself at Home podcast.
In his book Go Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America, New York Post business columnist Charlie Gasparino portrays Heinerscheid very sympathetically and holds the top executives of Anheuser-Bush, the owner of the Bud Light brand, ultimately responsible for the Dylan Mulvaney debacle. Gasparino explains that Anheuser-Bush executives, like many corporate CEOs, lived in fear of an organization called the Human Rights Campaign, whose “equality index” ratings on major U.S. companies impacted their compensations and stock prices.
The pressure on Heinerscheid to pursue very woke initiatives was intense and came from the very top, although Anheuser-Bush’s top brass pleaded the Sgt. Schultz defense and left Heinerscheid out to dry. Gasparino reports that Heinerscheid is married to an investment banker and is possibly a Republican.
A new Jaguar marketing campaign to signal a revamping of the British automaker’s iconic brand is being mocked as Bud Lite 2.0. and mercilessly being ridiculed for its clueless wokeness. Whereas Jaguar was once associated as an upscale brand whose vehicles were featured in James Bond movies, the campaign features half a dozen or so androgynous models dressed in vibrantly colored, monochromatic costumes and flashing phrases such as “create exuberant,” “live vivid,” “delete ordinary,” “break molds” and “copy nothing.”
Many critics, including Elon Musk, have dissed Jaguar for not featuring any vehicles in the ad, but they likely misunderstood what Jaguar was mimicking and hoping to accomplish. My guess is the ad was intended as a modern-day take on Apple’s famous 1984 commercial to launch its Macintosh line of computers. That ad didn’t feature any computers and is often cited as one of the greatest ads of all time.
Notably, Apple’s 1984 commercial and Jaguar’s latest ad both featured a woman carrying a sledgehammer.
Jaguar’s chief marketing officer in the U.S., typically the executive responsible for all marketing, is Charlotte Blank, who I correctly guessed has an MBA from Harvard. Blank posted Jaguar’s ad on her LinkedIn page, and many of the comments aren’t kind.
“Will be a case study for so many marketing students on how to destroy a brand in the social media era,” posted Grand Rapids-based Bob Taylor of Robert James Marketing. “The webs and socials have exploded negatively-so don’t count the clicks. Look at the content of their reactions, you are losing badly. Dealers must be screaming. Is that why you locked down your X account? Good luck.”
Said real estate agent Hayden Caldwell: “It’s actually quite the OPPOSITE of an exciting era. I was about to go sign for a brand new Jaguar. My dream luxury car, unlike others. Got a real estate license and sold homes just to afford my first SUV model. Texted my dealer yesterday, and canceled. I recommended he find a new career path. Jaguar did not enter “distinction”, rather extinction.”
Blank speaks a marketing language that’s foreign to me. Here’s an excerpt from an interview Blank gave an advertising trade publication.
Brand health metrics in the upper funnel? It’s my hope that most Harvard MBAs understand what she was talking about.
Another Jaguar brand executive is Santino Pietrosanti, who boasted at an awards dinner that Jaguar had “established over 15 DEI groups” as part of a “transformative journey.” As reported by the Daily Mail, Pietrosanti was born in the U.S. and lives in a city 50 miles from London called Milton Keynes with his Scottish husband, Paul, and a cockapoo named Mia.
Speaking at an LGBTQ awards show last month, Pietrosanti touted Jaguar’s changing culture — and bragged about implementing a woke agenda in the workplace.
“We’ve established more than 15 DEI groups such as Pride, Women in Engineering, and Neurodiversity Matters. We’ve launched major policy revisions such as ‘transitioning at work’ to drive equity and support for our communities embracing individuality as our superpower,” he said.
Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid had to deal with the fallout from the once powerful Human Rights Campaign, which according to Gasparino is overseen by a former Obama aide and has close ties to the Democratic party.
Even before Trump’s election, HRC’s influence was on the decline. As I noted in this post, Ford Motor Co., which consistently scored in the top tier of HRC’s rankings, has refused to continue co-operating with the organization. Other major companies no doubt will follow.
Perhaps my lack of an MBA hinders my appreciation for Jaguar’s latest campaign and the company will emerge as an EV powerhouse having the last laugh on Elon Musk. Alternatively, it won’t surprise me if Blank and Pietrosanti are soon pursing another line of work.