E-Malt.com News article: USA: Bud Light sees its worst sales drop in the week ending June 10

Bud Light has suffered its worst weekly sales drop following its disastrous partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the Daily Mail reported on June 21.

The beer's sales dropped 26.8 percent for the week ending June 10, the worst week-on-week performance since its early April advertising campaign resulted in a swift backlash.

It's a deeper drop from the week ending on June 3, which saw a 24.4 percent drop, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ. The new low beats the previous worst - an almost 26 percent drop - for the week ending May 25.

It comes after Bud Light lost its crown as America's bestselling beer to Modelo, a Mexican lager brewed by Grupo Modelo - which is also owned by Bud manufacturer Anheuser-Busch.

Anheuser-Busch's other US brands - including Budweiser, Michelob Ultra and Natural Light - have also seen a significant decline in sales since the controversy. Bud is down 10 percent, while Natty Light and Michelob are down 2.3 and 2.4 percent, respectively.

'This was a tough week for Bud Light and other beer brands,' Bump Williams, owner of the consulting company, said.

Since the Anheuser-Busch scandal, the nation's formerly second-largest beer - Modelo - has quickly risen through the ranks, rising up 5.7 percent in sales the week ending on June 10.

Anheuser-Busch's chief marketing officer said while accepting an award at an advertising awards ceremony on June 19 that the Bud Light partnership with Dylan Mulvaney was a humbling reminder it needs to understand its consumers better.

Marcel Marcondes ironically made the comments while accepting an award for 'Creative Marketer of the Year' at Cannes Lions - a lavish industry conference in the south of France dubbed the 'Oscars for the adverting industry.'

It comes months after the company lost $27billion in value due to a campaign.

Though AB was named the winner of the award before the fiasco erupted, it was not officially awarded until June 19, meaning there was a mighty elephant in the room. Some even said the company should turn down the award, the Wall Street Journal reported.

'In times like this, when things get divisive and controversial so easily, I think it's an important wake-up call to all of us marketers first of all to be very humble,' he said.

'That's what we're doing, being very humble, and really reminding ourselves of what we should do best every day, which is to really understand our consumers.

'Which is to really celebrate and appreciate every consumer that loves our brands - but in a way that can make them be together, not apart.'

The session was described in programming notes as a talk in part about AB InBev's 'relentless focus on connecting with consumers in meaningful ways,' The Wall Street Journal reported.

Marcondes has worked at AB InBev for nearly two decades, according to his LinkedIn profile, and now oversees its global marketing strategies of AB brands including Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA, Stella Artois and others.

'It's tough to see the controversial and divisive debates that have been happening in the US in the last couple of weeks involving lots of brands and companies, including and especially Bud Light,' Marcondes said during the Monday presentation.

'It's tough exactly because what we do is all about bringing people together.'

'That's what Bud Light stands for - it exists to make beer easy to drink and easy to enjoy,' he said.

'That's what we all, as a team, will be doing moving forward as a group. That's what leaders do. Bud Light is coming back. It's going all around the country, reconnecting with consumers, moving forward. That's what you can expect from Bud Light in the US.'

Bud Light's historic decline came after it partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a marketing campaign.

The hangover from the catastrophic advertising push has been ongoing since the collaboration was released in early April.

In the controversial promotion, Mulvaney, 26, posted a video on April 1 of herself cracking open a Bud Light on her Instagram page.

She showed off the customized can with her face on it - one of many corporate freebies she gets and promotes to her millions of followers.

Bud Light was accused of alienating their traditional customer base by partnering with Mulvaney, which led many conservatives - including Kid Rock - to boycott the brand.

Conservatives have continued with the boycott, leading to the Belgian based brewer to place two executives responsible for partnership— Alissa Heinerscheid, the vice president of marketing, and her boss, Daniel Blake — on leave in April.

Heinerscheid was hired to overhaul Bud Light's marketing in June 2022 with the vision of freshening up its image, while Blake had worked at Anheuser-Busch for nearly nine years.

Heinerscheid's short-lived tenure reportedly included a widely-lauded Super Bowl ad featuring Miles Teller and wife Keleigh Sperry, as well as 'the Bud Light Carry' campaign that showed a woman carrying a round of beers to a table of friends without spilling a drop.

Those ads, statements from the beer brand revealed, were part of Heinerscheid's vision to make the brand more female friendly - something she described only a few months ago as a 'passion point'.

But that vision was swiftly cut down on April 3 with the brand's partnership with Mulvaney, a controversial trans activist with a mass following on social media, which proved to be a step too far for Bud Light's loyal customers.

After Anheuser-Busch tried to distance itself from the Mulvaney promotion, Bud Light also faced backlash from the opposite direction, with pro-LGBTQ groups accusing the company of abandoning the transgender influencer.


21 June, 2023