Ad agency that orchestrated Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light partnership wins top honors at industry awards

The advertising agency that created the disastrous partnership between Bud Light and transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, a biological man who identifies as a woman, has won the top honor in the ad industry.

According to the New York Post, Bud Light's parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev’s top executive Marcel Marcondes received the "Creative Marketer of the Year" award at the annual Cannes Lions Festival in France.



According to a press release from the festival, “The award [Creative Marketer of the Year] recognizes AB InBev’s sustained creative excellence that has driven sustainable business growth — as well as their body of Lion-winning work amassed over a sustained period of time, and reputation for producing brave creative and innovative marketing solutions.”

Marcondes said during the opening remarks of the event that the Mulvaney debacle in which consumers boycotted the brand, causing it to lose the title of best-selling beer in America to Modelo Especial and almost $20 billion in value, was a “wake-up call” for the industry.

“In times like this, when things get divisive and controversial so easily, I think it’s an important wake-up call to all of us marketers, for us to be very humble,” he added.

He continued that AB InBev is “really reminding ourselves of what we should do best every day, which is to really understand our customers, which is to really celebrate and appreciate every customer that loves our brands, but in a way that can make them be together, not apart.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, some of the advertisers in attendance questioned AB InBev’s acceptance of the award, while others believed that campaigns the company did aside from the disastrous Mulvaney partnership should not be affected by the Bud Light campaign.
 

The campaign backfired on the beer giant so badly that Anheuser-Busch recently announced that it will send checks to affected distributors and wholesalers.