Ted Cruz Remains Committed to Putting Anheuser-Busch on Notice

Anheuser-Busch has been facing insurmountable issues after Bud Light partnered with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney back in April. As it turns out, though, those issues may include more than just a drop in sales. On Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) sent a letter to Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV CEO Michel Doukeris alerting him that Anheuser-Busch has so far not complied with an investigation into whether or not the beer brand was targeting children by partnering with Mulvaney. The letter asks Doukeris to "direct Anheuser-Busch to cooperate with the investigation."

BREAKING: @SenTedCruz has sent a letter to @AnheuserBusch, demanding that the woke company cooperate with the Senate Commerce Committee's on-going investigation into if @BudLight's sponsorship of Dylan Mulvaney was the brand marketing alcohol to children. pic.twitter.com/ZV6QA8hNlQ
— Will Hild (@WillHild) August 17, 2023

Back in May, Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) had sent a letter to Anheuser-Busch CEO and Beer Institute chairman Brendan Whitworth, asking that he and Beer Institute’s Code Compliance Review Board to look into whether the partnership "violated the Beer Institute's Advertising/Marketing Code and Buying Guidelines prohibiting marketing to individuals younger than the legal drinking age."

Although the board's review from last month found that Anheuser-Busch did not violating the marketing code, the decision wasn't unanimous, and Cruz's most recent letter makes mention of a dissent from retired Judge Paul Summers.

Anheuser-Busch Now Has Another Problem to Deal With https://t.co/XgVzL5xKeO
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 19, 2023

Mentioning his role as the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, Cruz also points out that
"Anheuser-Busch has yet to provide the Committee with a single document," adding "Anheuser-Busch’s failure to cooperate and blatant disregard for U.S. congressional oversight is unacceptable." His letter later mentions that he received "a roughly page-long unsigned response from Anheuser-Busch failing to provide any documents."

Stressing the urgency of compliance, Cruz also mentions that "[t]he level of cooperation the Committee receives will bear significantly on my assessment of whether this is part of a broader problem across the Anheuser-Busch InBev product line and whether changes to federal law are necessary to prohibit Anheuser-Busch InBev from marketing beer to children."

Federal laws may indeed be coming, as Cruz's letter mentions, hence how important compliance is:

My May 17th requests were designed to obtain pertinent information about how Bud Light selects marketing partners and applies beer industry guidelines in the context of social media. There are currently no federal laws against advertising alcohol to minors, in part because of the beer industry’s professed commitment to self-regulation. As Ranking Member on the Commerce Committee, it is my duty to ensure that the Beer Institute’s private regulatory regime is working; if it is not, then our Committee may be forced to consider legislating to protect consumers, including impressionable children. Congress cannot effectively weigh the costs and benefits of legislation unless it understands how brewers are adapting to the digital sphere. Anheuser-Busch’s response to my request is thus key to the Committee’s consideration of such potential legislation.

Cruz's letter also complains about Anheuser-Busch not providing documents, with their counsel citing the "citing the then-ongoing CCRB review," a move that Cruz called "nonsensical" since "[a] review conducted by an industry trade association is not a substitute for congressional oversight." As his letter mentions:

My May 17th letter was initially met with a roughly page-long unsigned response fromAnheuser-Busch failing to provide any documents. In subsequent communications with the Committee, counsel to Anheuser-Busch refused to provide any documents, citing the then-ongoing CCRB review. This is nonsensical. A review conducted by an industry trade association is not a substitute for congressional oversight. The CCRB’s review was limited in scope—the CCRB does not “investigate marketing partnerships” and did not demand supporting evidence from Anheuser-Busch. As CCRB Member Judge Summers observed, Anheuser-Busch “failed to provide the reasonable documentation” requested in my letter and complaint, even though I had issued“reasonable requests” and responses from Anheuser-Busch would have been “elucidating.”

Even with the review having concluded, Anheuser-Busch is still refusing to provide documents, "revealing plainly that the ongoing CCRB review was never the real reason for Anheuser-Busch’s refusal to cooperate," Cruz noted, taking further issue with the company trying to avoid his requests. "Anheuser-Busch is now suggesting that CCRB review was sufficient, and that it need not cooperate with congressional document requests. This position is untenable; Anheuser-Busch does not decide whether and when a congressional investigation is concluded."

When it comes to the details about the specific Mulvaney partnership, Cruz criticizes the board's findings as well, pointing to "numerous inaccuracies material to its decision."

As his letter goes on to mention with original emphasis:

This position is also troubling given the factual inaccuracies in the CCRB majority opinion.The Board left lingering questions about the marketing partnership with Mulvaney and advanced a misleading narrative about the audience data reviewed by the brewer. We still do not know, for example, exactly when Bud Light hired Mulvaney. The CCRB majority’s opinion also includes numerous inaccuracies material to its decision.16 For example, the Board was under the bewildering misapprehension that Anheuser-Busch “hired”17 CreatorIQ to prepare an “audience composition study”18 and that CreatorIQ “determined that 80.35 percent of Mulvaney’s Instagram audience was21 years of age or older.”19 The truth is that Anheuser-Busch itself extracted Mulvaney’s Instagram age ranges from existing Instagram data reposited on the CreatorIQ platform and then itself applied what it calls the “standard methodology”20 to guess what percent of the 18–24 category was above the legal drinking age. CreatorIQ had no role, whatsoever, in assessing Mulvaney’s audience demographics prior to the placement of the Bud Light ads, a fact CreatorIQ confirmed to theCommittee. It simply re-presented audience data that was already available to Mulvaney through Instagram.

In closing, Cruz warns that without an end to such "dilatory tactics..., Anheuser-Busch InBev will leave Congress no choice but to infer this obstructionism is intended to shield inculpatory information from the Committee’s investigation."

Cruz's letter calls on Doukeris to comply with the investigation and the May 17 letter by August 29.

As mentioned, Bud Light's drop in sales has caused a considerable headache for Anheuser-Busch. Sales are not only dropping, they're not expected to get better, as distributors have given up on customers coming back. Stores feel the same way, given that Costco has indicated they won't restock the product and retailers are reallocating shelf space to other brands. The company has also had to cut hundreds of jobs, and has sold many of its beer brands away.