Will Bud Light’s ex marketing hack put LIV Golf in the rough?

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the blundering, pompous Harvard-grad marketing gal who plopped a guy pretending to be a girl drinking a Bud Light into a bubble bath, and almost overnight sank the reputation of a beer once favored by most American men?

Her disastrous 2023 Bud Light marketing fiasco demolished the high-flying beer brand that once was America’s favorite. The whole hullabaloo is guaranteed to become a “What not to do” case study in university marketing classrooms everywhere, except maybe at Harvard.

However, it appears that some folks don’t learn from other people’s mistakes or are just seeking cheap help. For example, last month LIV Golf reached into the human resources “discount, discontinued items bin” and pulled out former Anheuser-Busch VP Alissa Heinerscheid, who has been working for the league in a “Team Business Operations” role since last September, according to her LinkedIn page. Unsurprisingly, she disappeared from Bud Light a little more than two years ago, at the apex of her debacle.

There will probably be a photo of her in the marketing hall of fame portraying that profession’s biggest losers, alongside those responsible for New Coke, the Edsel, and Lifelock CEO’s “can’t steal my info” challenge.

When asked by The New York Post, LIV Golf’s Chief Communications Officer Ilana Finley declined to comment on the league’s decision to hire Heinerscheid.

Her hiring is puzzling since published reports indicate the four-year-old golf league is struggling. Issues news reports and golf magazines say it faces in 2025 include:

• A focus on younger players and international stars who can bring fresh energy to the league.

• The need for better social media content, fan events, and online coverage to build a stronger following.

• Strengthen partnerships. They say new sponsorships and collaboration with other golf organizations will be key to its success.

How is this gal, whose ham-handed idea single-handedly annihilated one of the world’s most popular beer brands, going to help? And why would the league reach out to her? It’s like asking a steward on the Titanic to bring more ice. It makes no sense.

Anson Frericks, a former colleague of Heinerscheid’s who has since founded a venture capital company, addressed Bud Light’s brand woes in his new book “Last Call for Bud Light.” He wrote that Heinerscheid was “one of DEI’s chief proponents” at the company, and “never made a secret of her progressive politics” in the years they worked together.

Online commenters on The Post’s story didn’t applaud LIV’s choice of Heinerscheid, with one probably echoing many golfers’ sentiments saying; “What a horrible idea. Hire somebody who probably hates golf. The problem was not that she quote unquote made a mistake because she picked the wrong spokesperson. The problem was that she dripped condescension towards the brand’s customers and was totally out of touch. Some snobbish elitist Harvard graduate, holier than thou nose in the air snob was handed a brand beloved by people in areas she’s probably never been to. She was a terrible hire for Bud.”

He went on to add: “That they promoted her into a position of authority over the number one beer brand in the country was absurd, Thirty seconds of talking to her should have made them realize who she was, what she believed in, and how she would take things in a direction that was unsustainable. The same thing is going to be true about golf.”

Bud Light’s partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney — cost the company $1.4 billion in sales and billions more in market cap. A Babylon Bee headline during that fiasco announced: “Scientists At Bud Light Working On Time Machine That Goes Back About Six Months.”

The disgraced former marketing executive and a corporate woke warrior who tanked a popular beer brand appears to be an unlikely match for the controversial, struggling Saudi-backed sports league.

Just wait until she rolls out some of her woke guys-can-be-gals nonsense over in Islamic Saudi Arabia. I’ve read that locals’ answer to such issues is that there are most likely stones being hurled at them in public squares or non-public participation floggings.
Is there a Human Resources Hall of Fame for the “World’s Worst Hires”?

Dave Scott spent several years as a daily newspaper reporter in Florida and New York before joining the corporate world and heading up communications activities for IBM, ITT and other Fortune 50 companies in the U.S. and Europe, eventually running his own Atlanta agency. He lives on Amelia Island, FL, and blogs at www.davescottblog.com. He also writes, edits, and publishes the annual Amelia Island News-www.amelianewswrecker.com, a newspaper parody with the tag line “Amelia Island’s sacred cows make the best burgers.”

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