This is an opinion column.

An attractive woman shoots a large bear out of a cannon at the ocean. From the spot where the beast plunges into the water, Kid Rock emerges with a can of Bud Light singing, “This Bud’s for you.” If that were Bud Light’s latest marketing ploy, Anheuser-Busch could have saved about $5 billion in stock losses. Instead, Kid Rock is literally shooting Bud Light these days, and the beer juggernaut has alienated core customers in favor of cultural projection.

“Representation is sort of at the heart of evolution,” Bud Light Vice President of Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid noted in a late March podcast. “You’ve got to see people who reflect you in the work, and we had this hangover. I mean, Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important we had another approach.”

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To help address the aforementioned brand issues, Bud Light sent an influencer named Dylan Mulvaney a handful of beers which included Mulvaney’s likeness on a can. In a paid promotion, the TikTok star released a video dressed as Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, using Bud Light to celebrate her first year of womanhood and March Madness.

Consumers of Bud Light do indeed agree that an evolution is necessary, but not the one mentioned by Heinerscheid.

“Bud Light tastes like sugary musty rice, absolute swill. Tastes like someone attempted to create a beer flavored seltzer,” wrote one review on Beer Advocate.

“It smells like College and brings back some fun memories and it’s easy to chug but it’s Bud Light so not great,” offered another drinker.

“This is one beer that I can honestly say makes me feel like I would rather stay sober and drink water,” wrote a liquor store owner from Minnesota.

Bud Light, on a good day, is a fratty beer. Even so, my fraternity brothers’ discriminating palettes had a material preference for either Natural Light and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Of all the negative reviews, not one criticized Bud Light for failing to reflect a specific identity.

The uproar over Mulvaney’s endorsement will likely subside, but there’s an important lesson for corporations thinking about jumping into polarizing issues: Make sure your product can afford to tick off your consumer base.

Disney is a perfect example of a company that doesn’t mind social blowback. They’ve been so aggressive on cultural issues that they’ve drawn the ire of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Republicans. In spite of the political disagreements, Disney is banking that people will continue to flock to their theme parks, cruise lines, and other entertainment options.

Heinerscheid’s marketing sin isn’t Budweiser sending a few beers to a transgender social media influencer. Her other comments effectively tell the beer’s diminishing constituency that it doesn’t matter to Anheuser-Busch. Those “fratty” drinkers who would respond to the bear being shot out of a cannon aren’t particularly discriminating about the quality of their beverage. They’re just looking to relax after a long work week.

The Mulvaney stunt said, “We’d literally rather a transgender influencer awkwardly pitch March Madness than connect with the riff raff who actually drink our beer.” Anheuser-Busch’s marketing strategy suffers from the same elitist perspective as Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables.”

The issue is absolutely about representation.

Heinerscheid’s well-intentioned inclusivity is about the constituency she’d prefer to have versus the one she currently does. When consumers feel a company isn’t interested in them anymore, they tend to look for other options. In the case of Disney, consumers don’t have as many alternatives for the products and services they provide. Bud Light is sub-par beer. Thousands of better options exist.

Companies will continue to engage in hot-button cultural issues, but each situation is different. Anheuser-Busch presently has about 5 billion reasons they might want to focus on making Bud Light better instead of isolating their “fratty” core constituency. Doing so might convince even Kid Rock to give them another try.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with four boys, two dogs, a bearded dragon, and an extremely patient wife. He’s a partner in Triptych Media, a business strategy wonk, and a regular on talk radio. Please direct outrage or agreement to [email protected] or @DCameronSmith on Twitter.