Opinion
New reports indicate that Bud Light’s highly effective boycott cost parent company Anheuser-Busch as much as $1.4 billion following the brand’s collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a partnership in April last year.
Anheuser-Busch loses $1.4 billion
CNN reported Thursday that Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) reported record revenues for 2023, admitting that its “full growth potential has been limited” by its U.S. operations, with sales hurt by the Bud Light boycott launched on partnership with Mulvaney.
Last year, organic revenues in North America plummeted by $1.4 billion as beer sales by volume fell sharply, largely due to declining Bud Light sales in the United States. This is devastating news for AB InBev, as beer makes up the vast majority of its revenue.
“In the US, performance remains very disappointing, with revenues declining at double-digit rates as the group has lost market share,” Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at online investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, said on Thursday morning.
Related: Bud Light Humiliated as It Loses Crown as Super Bowl’s Best-Selling Beer to Mexican Crown
The former Anheuser-Busch executive speaks
Anson Frericks, former president of operations at Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch, told Fox Business earlier this month that the brand is having trouble winning back consumers because Anheuser-Busch hasn’t asked customers to ” go back to them.”
“They haven’t done a good job of getting out of this ditch at all,” Frericks said. “Sales continue to decline 30% week over week, despite spending three times their planned marketing budget on Bud Light last summer.”
Watch him talk more about this in the video below.
Last summer, Frericks admitted that Bud Light made a “mistake” by partnering with Mulvaney.
“[Bud Light] it was the biggest brand in the United States because it was remarkably apolitical,” he said. “It was always about sports, about music, about bringing people together. That’s why it was a mistake to do this campaign because they weren’t able to come out ”.
“This campaign was a mistake,” Frericks continued. “Anheuser-Busch will not do campaigns like this in the future. We’ll get back to the things that bring everyone together. We hope that this will protect jobs at Anheuser-Busch, jobs at wholesalers and get this company growing in the right direction again.”
Frericks concluded by calling on Anheuser-Busch executives to “get back to what Bud Light has always been, which was a great beer that was great to drink at football games and that didn’t necessarily become part of the conversation.”
Related: Kid Rock Backtracks on His Viral Bud Light Video – “Tantrum With A Machine Gun”
Trump calls for ‘second chance’ for Bud Light
Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump called on his supporters to give Bud Light a “second chance.”
“The Bud Light ad was a mistake of epic proportions, and a very high price was paid for it, but Anheuser-Busch is not a Woke company, but I can give you many things that are,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“Is Anheuser-Busch a great American brand that perhaps deserves a second chance?” Trump then added. “What do you think? Maybe instead we should go after those companies that are trying to DESTROY AMERICA!”
The latest reporting from Anheuser-Busch, however, indicates that Trump’s endorsement has done little to turn the tide when it comes to convincing consumers to return to Bud Light. In the end, Bud Light really made a big mistake by teaming up with Mulvaney, and it’s become clear that it’s a mistake the brand may never be able to recover from.
Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust.
The Political Insider ranks #3 on Feedspot’s “100 Best Political Blogs and Websites.”
