Communication in Popular Culture

 

Repentance on Tap: Bud Light and Cultural Accountability

In popular culture, marketing is never just about selling a product. It signals values, belonging, and identity. One of the clearest missteps is failing to truly read your audience. What happened to Bud Light feels less like a simple branding error and more like a breakdown in listening. Communication begins to unravel when a basic question is overlooked: Who is actually on the other side of this message? This moment also illustrates how Marxist critiques of popular culture help explain everyday consumer reactions, particularly the idea that cultural messages are shaped by power, class, and control rather than neutral intention. Through this lens, hegemony operates quietly, privileging one group’s worldview while presenting it as progress or common sense. In the United States, dominant cultural narratives are often shaped by socioeconomic status, race, gender, and ability, and brands sometimes assume that adopting a new “inclusive” message will automatically resonate across all audiences. In explaining Bud Light’s new direction, a marketing executive described the brand’s longtime image as “fratty” and “out of touch,” expressing a desire to evolve and elevate it into something more inclusive. While that intention is thought to be inclusive, intention alone does not guarantee understanding. The shift did not unfold through dialogue or gradual change; instead, it arrived abruptly in the form of a bubble-bath video featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman. For many longtime Bud Light drinkers, the moment felt confusing and disconnected, because their cultural identity felt unseen and unappreciated. Rather than reading the room, the brand spoke past it—and true accountability, much like genuine repentance, begins not with explanation, but with listening.

From Bubble baths to cookouts

To regain the support of the customers they lost, Bud Light’s first major campaign after the Mulvaney backlash was the “Easy to Summer” ad series, which showed rugged men enjoying the beer at cookouts and beaches, set to upbeat music and focused on simple, lighthearted fun. The campaign marked a clear return to generic, lifestyle-driven messaging meant to remind viewers that Bud Light is just a beer for casual get-togethers, and had a whiplash on beer drinkers.

Marketing Repentance: Learning, Adjusting, and Returning

What better represents the “common man’s beer” than a group of multimillionaires throwing a cul-de-sac party? The irony was hard to miss. Following the marketing debacle launched on April Fool’s Day, Bud Light continues to struggle with alignment, revealing just how far the brand has drifted from the audience it built its identity on.