Miller Lite launched a marketing campaign for Women’s History Month in March that railed against beer ads focused on bimbos in bikinis — but appears to have made efforts to keep quiet about it following Bud Light’s disastrous Dylan Mulvaney tie-up.
Miller Lite’s Women’s History Month campaign, titled “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T,” was posted on March 7, pledging to clean up the brand’s past of sexist ads objectifying women — instead supporting female brewers by donating fertilizer they can use to “grow quality hops.”
But just two months after the campaign’s launch, the video is nowhere to be found on Miller Lite’s Twitter or TikTok accounts. Comments for Instagram posts on the campaign have been disabled, with no previous comment publicly visible.
The video of the ad on YouTube, meanwhile, is “unlisted” and doesn’t appear on the beer brand’s channel page, or in YouTube’s search results or suggestions.
In the “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T” ad, actress and comedian Ilana Glazer shares a “little-known fact” that “women were among the very first to brew beer — ever.”
She continued: “Centuries later, how did the industry pay homage to the founding mothers of beer? They put us in bikinis. Wow.”
As she walks through a room plastered with years-old Miller Lite ads filled with women in tight-fitting or barely-there clothing, Glazer says “it’s time beer made it up to women.”
As of Monday, however, the easiest way to view the ad was through the social media posts of critics who were busy roasting it. It’s unclear whether the Instagram comments section had been scrubbed, or if the YouTube post was listed publicly before having its privacy settings changed.
It also remains unknown if the campaign video was previously posted to Twitter before being taken down. As of Monday, The Post could not find “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T” on Miller Lite’s Twitter account.
Miller Lite and its maker, Molson Coors Beverage Company, did not immediately respond to noti.group’s request for comment.
Miller Lite’s “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T” campaign was posted one month before trans social media star Dylan Mulvaney shared a custom Bud Light can the brand sent her with her photo on it.
The Bud Light can, which was never for public sale, was intended to celebrate Mulvaney’s “365 Days of Girlhood,” but instead served as the catalyst for Bud Light’s downward spiral, with nationwide sales down 23.4% versus a year ago in the week of April 29.
“Today, Miller Lite is on a mission to clean up not just their sh-t, but the whole beer industry’s sh-t,” Glazer says in the March 7 ad, referencing the fertilizer Miller Lite will be donating to female brewers to “grow quality hops. Miller Lite has been scouring the internet for all this s-it and buying it back, so they can turn it into good sh-t for women brewers. Literally, good s-it.”
“So here’s to women,” Glazer says as the ad ends, raising a can of Miller Lite. “Without us, there would be no beer.”
On Monday, the two-month-old video began attracting the attention of social media users.
“Miller Lite has joined the woke cult,” Twitter user Citizen Free Press tweeted alongside the campaign video on Monday morning. As of 3 p.m. that afternoon, the video had more than 3.1 million views.
“This is what happens when 20-something gender studies majors invade corporate boardrooms and wage woke crusades against their own consumers Another fallen one today — R.IP. Miller Lite,” media personality Benny Johnson tweeted in response to the campaign.
“Miller Lite saw the Bud Light disaster and decided they needed their own woke beer ad. These companies are broken & have no idea who actually consumes their products,” another user tweeted, although the Miller Lite campaign was posted before Bud Light spiraled into controversy.
“Im just going to quit drinking at this point,” another user replied, as many others nodded to the slogan, “Go woke, go broke.”
On YouTube, comments suggested that between Bud Light and Miller Lite’s recent marketing moves, “we got 2 of the best examples of having no clue who your customers were … Now notice how I said ‘were’ and not ‘are.’”
“This makes me want to go buy more Yuengling,” another commenter said.
Meanwhile, Yuengling has positioned itself to scoop up Bud Light — and possibly now Miller Lite’s — ex-customer base with the timely release of limited-edition red, white and blue cans to support veterans.
Another Twitter user called Miller Lite’s campaign “the best commercial ever for Yuengling.”
While the Miller Lite ad has seemingly escaped harsh criticism until now, Bud Light has continued to make headlines with declining sales and axed marketing execs.
Most recently, a second Bud Light senior marketing executive has been placed on leave following backlash and calls for a boycott over the brand’s recent partnership with Mulvaney.
Now, Bud Light isn’t the only beer in maker Anheuser-Busch’s portfolio suffering. Budweiser and Michelob Ultra sales were down 11.4% and 4.4%, respectively, the week ending April 29, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ data.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
