The Global Chief Marketing Officer of Anheuser-Busch (AB), Marcel Marcondes, told Newsmax on Monday that the campaign with transgender Dylan Mulvaney was a “wake-up call” for the company. Hopefully, for the brand, he will realize that his effort against Mulvaney did not cause the Bud Light boycott. It was merely a symptom. The cause of the boycott was Bud Light made one of the biggest brand mistakes possible—ignoring and disparaging the brand’s primary audience. …

If AB truly believes their campaign using transgender Dylan Mulvaney was a mistake and believes they need to reconnect with their consumers, the boycott may end. However, if they are just paying lip service to the issue, it will get much worse.

[I don’t think A-B is admitting to any specific mistake. This sounds to me more like “lip service,” as Jeff puts it, because A-B is afraid of a progressive backlash if they do explicitly apologize for their Mulvaney influencer partnership. I’ve argued all along that Mulvaney was just a catalyst and the actual proximate cause of the disaster was Alissa Heinerscheid’s insult of their consumers by condemning the previous ad campaigns they enjoyed as “fratty” and unacceptable. A-B hasn’t even formally dismissed her yet, let alone apologize for those remarks. — Ed]