Using their sponsorship dollars elsewhere.
There’s no company that’s more synonymous with St. Louis than Anheuser-Busch. The iconic beer brand was founded in St. Louis way back in 1852, and remains headquartered there to this day.
And Busch has remained a prominent member of the community. The home of the St. Louis Cardinals is Busch Stadium, and the company has long sponsored many events in and around St. Louis.
But this year, they’re ending their decades-long sponsorship of one event in their city…
Pride St. Louis announced today that Anheuser-Busch would be ending their 30-year sponsorship of St. Louis PrideFest, with organizers saying they’re “deeply disappointed” in the beer brand’s decision:
“This anniversary is a testament to the strength, resilience, and love within our community. While we are deeply disappointed that Anheuser-Busch has chosen to step away from supporting PrideFest this year, we remain hopeful that the community will step up where they have stepped down.”
The decision from Busch, along with other sponsors cutting back, has reportedly left the festival $150,000 short of last year’s funding total, and they’ve been forced to launch a crowdfunding campaign to try to make up the difference.
Of course the decision from Busch to drop out of the pride festival comes two years after they faced significant backlash over their partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a marketing campaign. The partnership sparked boycotts that ended up costing the company billions of dollars, and they’ve since made significant changes to get back to their roots and appeal to their core audience.
But it also comes at a time when other companies have abandoned their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen companies like John Deere, Tractor Supply, Jack Daniel’s and many more announce that they would be ending sponsorships for social causes like pride festivals and instead direct their dollars towards supporting their community, veterans, and American workers.
And St. Louis PrideFest isn’t the only pride festival feeling the effects of the cutbacks. Over the past few weeks, San Francisco Pride says that several companies, including Anheuser-Busch and spirits giant Diageo, have informed them that they’ll be ending their sponsorships of the annual festival:
“I just interpreted that companies are making decisions that at this time it’s not good to be sponsoring Pride. I think in this political environment that they thought that was a risky decision. But that’s just me reading the tea leaves. I think for a long-term sponsor not to sponsor us, they are responding to what we are.”
Along with the changing priorities in where their sponsorship dollars are going, many companies are doing away with DEI initiatives in their hiring practices, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order during his first day in office ending DEI in the federal government.
It’s a welcome change for many, who want to support brands like Anheuser-Busch and Jack Daniel’s without it being seen as a political statement or support for one side of an issue over another.
And I know, people are going to say that pride festivals aren’t political but let’s be honest: Do you really think these festivals are encouraging people to vote for Republicans? Of course not. Pride organizations have long been supporters of Democrats, advocate for left-wing causes beyond gay and transgender rights, and at this point the pride festivals are (for better or worse) inextricably linked with the Democrat party.
So it makes sense that companies would want to find a more neutral cause or event for their money to go towards – especially at a time when DEI and LGBT policies seem to be especially unpopular among the average American consumer.
