Mediaboss Marketing

NASHVILLE, TENN. U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Ranking Member of theSubcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security, and Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member TedCruz(R-Texas) today opened an investigation intoand called on the beer industrys self-regulatory bodythe Beer Instituteto investigate whetherAnheuser-Buschs partnership with influencer Dylan Mulvaney violatesthe Beer Institutesguidelines prohibiting marketing to underage individuals.

The letter outlines evidence showing that Dylan Mulvaneys audience skewsyounger than the legal drinking ageand that Mulvaneys social media content appeals to young viewers. Theletteralso calls on Anheuser-Busch to sever its relationship with Dylan Mulvaney.

In a letter to Brendan Whitworth, CEO of Anheuser-Busch and Chairman of the Beer Institute, Sens. Blackburn and Cruzwrite:

We are writing to you today in both your capacity as the United States Chief Executive Officer of the Anheuser-Busch Companies (Anheuser-Busch or your company) and as the Chairman and Senior Director of the Beer Institute, the beer industrys self-regulatory body with authority over the advertising of beer. Our requests are two-fold.

First, we write to ask that the Beer Institutes Code Compliance Review Board open an investigation to review Anheuser-Buschs recent and ongoing marketing partnership with Dylan Mulvaney. The Beer Institute must examine whether your company violated the Beer Institutes Advertising/Marketing Code and Buying Guidelines prohibiting marketing to individuals younger than the legal drinking age.

The evidence detailed below overwhelmingly shows that Dylan Mulvaneys audience skews significantly younger than the legal drinking age and violates the Beer Institutes Advertising/Marketing Code and Buying Guidelines. We would urge you, in your capacity at Anheuser-Busch, to avoid a lengthy investigation by the Beer Institute by instead having Anheuser-Busch publicly sever its relationship with Dylan Mulvaney, publicly apologize to the American people for marketing alcoholic beverages to minors, and direct Dylan Mulvaney to remove any Anheuser-Busch content from his social media platforms.

Second, we believe that Anheuser-Buschs clear failure to exercise appropriate due diligence when selecting online influencers for its marketing efforts warrants detailed oversight by Congress. To that end, this letter includes a series of document requests that will help clarify how Anheuser-Busch vets its partnerships and how Anheuser-Busch failed in assessing the propriety of a partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.

The letter highlights that Dylan Mulvaneys audience skews predominantly towards young people below the drinking age, providing a number of examples in support:

As you and your Anheuser-Busch colleagues are aware, Dylan Mulvaney is a prominent social media influencer with 1.8 million followers on Instagram and 10.8 million followers on TikTok. As Mulvaneys talent agency CAA notes, he is infamous for the series titled Days of Girlhood which received over 750 million views in less than 100 days. (emphasis added) Mulvaneys Days ofGirlhood series should have been the first red flag to Anheuser-Busch that it was entering into a partnership with an individual whose audience skews impermissibly below the Beer Institutes proscribed guidelines.

The use of the phrase Girlhood was not a slip of the tongue but rather emblematic of a series of Mulvaneys online content that was specifically used to target, market to, and attract an audience of young people who are well below the legal drinking age in the United States.

Examples include:

1.Dylan Mulvaney lip-syncing I am Eloise, I am six while dressed as a small child. This video gathered 7.1 million views.It aired thirteen days before the Bud Light partnership.

2.Dylan Mulvaney during Day 100 of being a girl at the mall giving away merchandise and cash to teenage girls, at least one of whom was still in braces.That video garnered over 11 million views.

The Senators also request a number of documents from both Anheuser-Busch related to the partnership including communications, scripts of social media content, solicitations for content, and documents relating to Anheuser-Buschs corporate policy for advertising on social media platforms.

The full text of the letter is availablehere.

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Sens. Blackburn, Cruz Call For Probe Of Bud Light Potentially ... - Marsha Blackburn