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Dove Soap Hires BLM Activist, Quickly Gets ‘Bud Light’ Treatment and Calls for Boycott

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You might have thought that every other American company that witnessed the downfall of Bud Light as the number-one-selling brand of beer in the country after the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco would have made it a point to inform their marketing department, that going woke is not a winning marketing strategy and would not be approved. But going woke does seem to be the latest fad in the marketing industry. The latest brand that is attempting insanity and expecting a different outcome is Dove Soap. Dove is not only facing a boycott, but its entry into the woke arena comes with some serious baggage.

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Last month, Dove Soap began something called the “Fat Liberation campaign,” presumably an effort to encourage customers to accept and feel good about their bodies, no matter what they look like. Great idea, sounds good so far. The spokeswoman Dove has partnered with for this campaign is a woman named Zyanha Bryant. Bryant has a history that could be a real problem for Dove Soap. Bryant was a student activist at the University of Virginia and, most notably, a Black Lives Matter activist. 

During the summer of 2020, BLM protesters were gathered on a partially blocked Charlottesville street. Morgan Bettinger, also a UVA student, began to drive down the street and then realized it was blocked off by a dump truck. Bettinger parked and started to walk down the street to see what was happening. As she passed by the truck, she had a brief conversation with the truck driver and made remarks to the effect of, “It’s a good thing that you are here because otherwise these people would have been speed bumps.” The comments were meant to praise the presence of the truck so no protesters would be hurt by any possible oncoming traffic.

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But in a twisted game of telephone, Bettinger’s comments made it through the crowd and turned into Bettinger calling the protesters speed bumps and saying she was going to run them over. BLM protester Bryant then took it upon herself to post an account of the incident on X, formerly Twitter. But that wasn’t enough for Bryant. She immediately began demanding that school administrators expel Bettinger. Bryant also filed a complaint with the University Judiciary Committee, claiming to the student-run disciplinary committee that Bettinger had “threatened students’ health and safety.” 

The committee sided with Bryant. But Bryant wasn’t done yet. She then filed a complaint with UVA’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights. It is here that Bryant got a bit creative with the story, claiming that Bettinger had repeated the alleged speed bump statement five times and had racially discriminated against her. Thankfully, the EOCR Office engaged in a bit of common sense and determined that Bryant did not hear the comments being repeated herself because no one could be found that could corroborate the claim. Despite this, Bettinger has since graduated from UVA but feels the whole incident, along with the committee verdict, greatly impaired her chances of getting into law school. Bryant did admit later that she might have “misheard” Bettinger’s comments. Nice of her to say after virtually destroying someone’s life.

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If Dove Soap thought they were going to slip Zyanha Bryant’s past under the woke rug, they were mistaken. Long-time customers took to X to voice their outrage at the partnership with Bryant. along with pictures of bars of Dove in trash cans, one customer stated, “Guess I’ve bought my last bar of Dove soap.” Another stated, “I’ve stopped buying their products. Never again!” Still, another said, “This woman put another UVA student through hell, and it was all a woke lie.” Some are using the hashtag “#BoycottDove.” Even X CEO Elon Musk called the partnership between Dove and Bryant “messed up.”

Dove Soap might want to take a time out and talk to the powers that be at Bud Light and Target. As my colleague Jeff Charles reported, beer industry expert Harry Schumacher says that Bud Light sales have been consistently down at about 30 percent since around May or June of this year. He added, “That tells me that this is quasi-permanent, meaning those consumers are just lost forever.” Last month, Target reported a 5.4 percent drop in sales for the first time in six years. 

Both Bud Light and Target might have recovered at least somewhat if they had just acknowledged they had made a mistake by catering to the woke crowd and apologized. But neither brand could muster the courage to do so, more than likely fearing backlash. Dove Soap started with a great idea: Encourage people, especially women, to feel good about themselves and their bodies, no matter what size they are. But they might just have to find out as Bud Light and Target did, when you partner with woke warriors, go woke go broke is a very real thing.

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