Coors Light refuses to pull out of sponsoring Denver Pride Parade despite potential backlash

Despite intense backlash recently over rival Bud Light’s partnership with LGBTQ and transgender star Dylan Mulvaney, Coors Light is remaining the title sponsor of the Pride parade in Denver.

Anheuser-Busch, which makes Bud Light, has lost $27 billion in value due to a campaign with Mulvaney that upset conservatives. Then the company upset progressives too after failing to support Mulvaney through the backlash.

Molson Coors, which is headquartered in Golden, Colorado, about 15 miles west of Denver, is standing by, with the parade remaining ‘The Coors Light Denver Pride Parade’ set for Sunday.

Several major corporations have backed the event – which is expected to draw over 100,000 visitors. Fellow alcohol manufacturer Absolut and companies such as Verizon, Visa, Walmart, Amazon and Target have backed the event. 

However, local LGBTQ+ rights leaders see Coors sticking by the parade as a huge moment when it might be seen as a damaging business decision in the wake of the Mulvaney controversy.

Molson Coors, which is headquartered in Golden, Colorado, about 15 miles west of Denver, is standing by, with the parade remaining ‘The Coors Light Denver Pride Parade’ set for Sunday

‘This is kind of the hard part of allyship,’ said Rex Fuller, the CEO of the parade organizer Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado, told Axios. 

‘We are in a time period when it can be quite fashionable in some corners to pretty openly express homophobic, transphobic (sentiments) and racism, and I think that can make this uncomfortable at some points.’ 

Adam Collins, Molson Coors chief communications and corporate affairs officer, gave a statement to Fox News standing by the parade.

‘At the end of a long day or the start of a great night, everyone deserves to feel comfortable having a drink and being themselves,’ Collins said.

‘That’s why beer, wine and spirits companies like ours have supported Pride for decades, why we’ll do so in 2023 and why we’ll continue to do so for decades to come,’ he added.

Anheuser-Busch has been dealing with the scandal since Mulvaney posted cans the company sent, specially designed to celebrate her first year of ‘girlhood’ back in April.

After Anheuser-Busch tried to distance itself from the Mulvaney promotion, Bud Light also faced backlash from the opposite direction, with pro-LGBTQ groups accusing the company of abandoning the transgender influencer. 

Several gay bars in Chicago have also decided to drop all Anheuser-Busch products, arguing the company has turned its back on the LGBTQ+ community.

A photo from Denver Pride 2022. Local LGBTQ+ rights leaders see Coors sticking by the parade as a huge moment when it might be seen as a damaging business decision in the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney controversy

Anheuser-Busch has been dealing with the scandal since Mulvaney posted cans the company sent, specially designed to celebrate her first year of ‘girlhood’ back in April

Anheuser-Busch has been dealing with the scandal since Mulvaney posted cans the company sent, specially designed to celebrate her first year of ‘girlhood’ back in April

The company has since lost billions of dollars in market capitalization, and continues to be boycotted by tens of millions of former consumers. 

Earlier this month, Modelo Especial dethroned Bud Light as the top American beer, as its sales have increased more than 15 percent from the same time a year ago.

Bud Light’s parent company said earlier this month it will triple its marketing spending in the US this summer as it tries to boost ailing sales.

Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michel Doukeris has downplayed the impact of the backlash, saying Bud Light’s US sales declines in the first three weeks of April represented only one percent of InBev’s global volumes.

‘We believe we have the experience, the resources and the partners to manage this,’ Doukeris said during a conference call with investors earlier this month.

The Belgian based brewer placed two executives responsible for partnership — Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing, and her boss, Daniel Blake — on leave in April. 

The exec was hired to overhaul Bud Light’s marketing in June 2022 with the vision of freshening up its image, while Blake had worked at Anheuser-Busch for nearly nine years.

Heinerscheid’s short-lived tenure reportedly included a widely-lauded Super Bowl ad featuring Miles Teller and wife Keleigh Sperry, as well as ‘the Bud Light Carry’ campaign that showed a woman carrying a round of beers to a table of friends without spilling a drop.

Those ads, statements from the beer brand revealed, were part of Heinerscheid’s vision to make the brand more female friendly – something she described only a few months ago as a ‘passion point’.