Problems are piling up with no end in sight for Bud Light.
The embattled beer brand is facing another disaster.
And that’s because Ted Cruz hit Bud Light with a nasty curveball that no one ever expected.
Bud Light is reeling from the massive backlash the beer brand is facing from conservatives over partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Sales of Bud Light and other beer brands owned by parent company, Anheuser-Busch, are tanking.
Now, Anheuser-Busch has another big problem to deal with from its Mulvaney partnership.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) are demanding an investigation into Bud Light over whether its partnership with Mulvaney was used to court underage drinkers.
Mulvaney rose to prominence using the Chinese social media app TikTok, which has a user base that skews younger.
In addition to the woke crowd, Bud Light could have been targeting minors by using a TikTok influencer for their marketing campaign.
“A massive percentage of Dylan Mulvaney’s audience are kids,” Cruz told Fox News. “And Budweiser was trying, I believe, with this ill-fated marketing attempt to target teenagers.”
Cruz and Blackburn sent a letter to Beer Institute Chairman Brandon Whitworth who doubles as the CEO of Anheuser-Busch.
They called on the Beer Institute’s Code Compliance Review Board to launch an investigation into the Bud Light-Mulvaney partnership.
“The evidence detailed below overwhelmingly shows that Dylan Mulvaney’s audience skews significantly younger than the legal drinking age,” the letter said. “We believe that Anheuser-Busch’s clear failure to exercise appropriate due diligence when selecting online influencers for its marketing efforts warrants detailed oversight by Congress.”
The Beer Institute is the national trade association for companies that produce and import beer.
Cruz expressed his concern that Bud Light “violated the Beer Institute’s Advertising/Marketing Code and Buying Guidelines prohibiting marketing to individuals younger than the legal drinking age.”
The Beer Institute’s advertising rules state that ads can only be placed in mediums where at least 73.6% of consumers are of the legal drinking age.
The Texas Senator said that 17% of TikTok users are between 13-17 years old while 42% are 18-24.
The letter said that TikTok and Instagram, where the partnership was first announced, are primarily geared towards younger audiences.
Cruz pointed to Mulvaney’s social media content as being aimed at teenagers.
“If you look at things Dylan Mulvaney has online, it’s things like ‘days of girlhood.’ There’s another video where Dylan Mulvaney is singing ‘My name is Eloise and I am six.’ There’s another one where Dylan Mulvaney is shopping for Barbie dolls,” Cruz said.
Mulvaney amassed a following of mainly younger users on social media.
“These are clearly things aimed at teenagers and even children younger than teenagers, which violates the rules,” Cruz added.
He compared the Mulvaney campaign to Camel Cigarettes using the cartoon mascot, Joe Camel, to target younger users.
Now Anheuser-Busch is dealing with another major crisis as the damage from the Dylan Mulvaney controversy continues to spiral out of control.
