Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light Nightmare Shows No Signs of Reversing in New Earnings Report
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Bud Light is still hurting from the boycott brought on by its partnership last year with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev’s first-quarter results showed Americans aren’t budging on the brand despite its marketing campaigns with organizations such as UFC and the NFL.
AB InBev reported a 9.9 percent drop in volume sold in North America, Yahoo Finance noted on May 10. Sales in the United States to retailers were down 13.7 percent and sales to wholesalers by 10.7 percent.
Over the latest four-week period, sales of Bud Light were down 27.1 percent compared with a year ago.
While AB InBev had a 2.6 percent increase in global revenue for the quarter, the numbers indicate Americans have their minds made up with a 9.1 percent decrease in revenue in the United States.
Mulvaney — whose “365 Days of Girlhood” TikTok videos about “transitioning” catapulted him to stardom — partnered with Bud Light to promote the brand in an Instagram video during the NCAA basketball tournament in 2023, provoking a firestorm of outrage and calls for boycotts.
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Bud Light’s marketing vice president at the time, Alissa Heinerscheid, justified the move by saying Bud Light’s image had become “fratty” and “out of touch.”
While it has been a year since this incident and Bud Light has tried numerous marketing strategies to move on, U.S. beer drinkers clearly aren’t forgetting so easily.
“We’ve lost a whole generation of hardcore Bud Light shoppers,” alcoholic beverage industry consultant Bump Williams told Yahoo Finance. “It’s going to take us at least 10 years to try and recapture what we lost in one year.”
As the mantra goes, “Get woke, go broke.”
While AB InBev doesn’t appear to be on the brink of collapse, what we can now call a disaster will serve as a cautionary tale for other brands.
Indeed, Bud Light’s loss was its competitors’ gain, according to Williams. Coors Light sales in the U.S. for the last four weeks were up 15.3 percent from last year. Miller Lite and Yuengling Lager also saw increases — 7.8 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively.
While AB InBev seems to have realized its blunder and will probably avoid total annihilation, how will this impact the marketing landscape overall?
Surely other marketing teams who watched the “Bud Light effect” play out over a year later will think twice before casting their lot with transgender ideology.
AB InBev executives erred in thinking that trends playing out on social media — where far-left voices are often the loudest — represent real life.
It somehow forgot that millions of normal working people drink beer and are responsible for a significant portion of their revenue.
In 1990, Michael Jordan declined to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt in his race against Republican Sen. Jesse Helms in North Carolina, saying, “Republicans buy sneakers too.”
While Jordan has since said he was being jovial, the quote still speaks to the truth of marketing and demographics that brands might want to keep in mind.
It is not wise to alienate your consumer base.
Specificity in marketing can be a dangerous game as brands risk having consumers sour on them for their embrace of a fringe demographic.
Bud Light is still learning the hard way that transgenderism is not widely embraced and championed by the regular person.
If other brands were smart, they’d take a hint.
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