The Bee Sting

Darkness was descending on a warm summer eve as four of us friends, three boys and a girl, played while our parents chatted. One of my playmates used a long stick to poke a wasp nest. Like four little dim-witted mouth-breathers, we thought this might be fun.

Seconds later, we four little geniuses were running away screaming. We ran into the house and told the adults that we were playing when, suddenly, "a bunch of bees started stinging us." While the other adults recoiled in surprise, it was my Dad who figured things out and somewhat exonerated the wasps for a justifiable stinging.

Before I could come up with a plausible lie to Dad's question, "You poked it with a stick, didn't you?!", one of the adult women yelled, "Look at her arm!" The girl had been stung only once, on her forearm, which had noticeably swollen. She was immediately taken to the hospital.

For the record, I received four stings on the rump but no one cared. The girl, Dad would explain the next day, had a systemic reaction to the sting. She was allergic to "bee" (wasp) stings.

In everyday words, a systemic reaction is when something small and normally unremarkable causes a big event. For most of America's two and a half centuries, bee stings and other small happenings did not "shake up" or alter the decisions of most of its citizens. Perhaps America is about to have a systemic reaction to a cultural bee sting.

Budweiser has hired Trans activist Dylan Mulvaney to be a brand ambassador and represent Bud Light beer. We're not talking about champagne or wine or wine cooler, but beer.

Over the years, Budweiser has accumulated a customer base largely composed of tradesmen, mechanics, construction workers, truckers, as well as warehouse workers, business supervisors, salesmen, and many different, hardworking people. Budweiser's customer base readily accepted Bud Light as interchangeable with Budweiser.

I am not an expert on marketing, but I have observed a few traits of Bud Light's customer base. They root for different sports teams, they personally know the best plumber/mechanic/farmer ever, they still think Shania Twain is a hottie, and they endorse different pickup manufacturers until you never want to hear the names "Ford" and "Chevy" again.but they are consistently protective of their families. In their minds, the word "tranny" refers to that box full of gears that's bolted to the engine.

All too often, some recent advertising or marketing newcomer with diplomas and an MBA from big, ultra-liberal schools but few life experiences, decides to change America by forcing their values on everyone else. Sitting behind their computers teleworking, while Bud Light's customer base installs a new roof or manufactures shirts or presses a bearing onto a spindle, these "ad-idiots" conclude that Bud Light's customer base are low IQ and easily swayed.

What the ad-idiots don't perceive is that the customer is not devoid of thought as they sit, hunched over the beer, quietly staring ahead. Much more likely, that Bud Light customer is analyzing their work mistakes of the day and how to improve life for their family and themselves tomorrow.

A funny juxtaposition is that another beer company has an ad featuring a hero paramedic, dangling from a helicopter by a cable, to rescue people. Bud Light has chosen to feature a man pretending to be a woman.

Let me freely admit that I could be wrong, but I can't help but think that turning Bud Light into Bud Tranny might be the bee sting that causes a systemic reaction in the American marketplace.  Certainly there are enormously successful and wealthy people who actually understand the Bud Light customer base, who seem to think so.  Let's hope Kid Rock's marketing sense is as accurate in beer as it is in music!