Ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, Bud Light is offering a rebate of up to $15 on certain purchases in the midst of a months-long boycott that has seen sales of the beer plummet. In some areas, where a 15-pack of beer sells for less than $15, the beer could be essentially free.
The offer—similar to the one over Memorial Day weekend last month—is being made for not only Bud Light but for Budweiser, Budweiser Select, and Budweiser Select 55, which are all owned by Anheuser-Busch. No other AB-owned beers like Michelob or Busch are included in the promotion.
Earlier this week, industry data showed that year-over-year sales of the light beer plunged about 28 percent for the week ending June 17, representing about a 2 percent decline from the previous week when sales dropped about 26 percent. For the month of May, Bud Light was dethroned as the No. 1 beer by Modelo Especial, owned by Constellation Brands in the United States, figures show.
Bud Light, meanwhile, has released new advertisements claiming that the beer is “easy to drink,” including a commercial featuring summer themes. On social media, some prominent conservative influencers, however, criticized the beer company for not apologizing over its earlier promotional campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which triggered the boycott.
“I think it’s the impact, honestly, on the employees that weighs most on me. Again, as I mentioned, seeing the pride and the commitment that they have, working on behalf of 165-plus-year-old American institution is what gives us energy as we look to move forward and focus on what we do best,” Whitworth said.
In early April, Mulvaney, a biological male, posted videos that featured special cans to celebrate “girlhood” and claimed it was the “most prized possession.” Those videos quickly went viral on social media and were universally derided by conservative media figures, while some suggested a consumer boycott.
Whitworth was also asked about the company’s previous support of LGBT issues. “As we move forward, we want to focus on what we do best, which is brewing great beer for everyone, listening to our consumers, being humble in listening to them, making sure that we do right by our employee[s], take care and support our partners, and ultimately make an impact in the communities that we serve,” he responded.
The company, Whitworth continued, has communicated with “over 100,000 consumers,” and “their feedback is very clear,” which he claimed was to “reinforce what Bud Light has always meant to them, which is good times goodwill, and easy enjoyment.”
Earlier in June, Anheuser-Busch’s top marketing officer, Marcel Marcondes, received an award for “creative marketer of the year” at Cannes Lions in France.
“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 for us to be very humble,” Marcondes said at the time.
Anheuser-Busch-InBev is “really reminding ourselves of what we should do best every day, which is to really understand our customers, which is to really celebrate and appreciate every customer that loves our brands, but in a way that can make them be together, not apart,” he also said.
But the company’s pivot may be too little, too late for some consumers. One analyst said that the company might lose up to 20 percent of its business permanently.
Evercore’s Robert Ottenstein said Bud Light would “permanently lose” between 15 and 20 percent of its volume. After that, “declines will resume at about the average rate of the prior 10 years,” he said.
“We believe recent underperformance implies a permanent reduction in ABI’s U.S. business,” Deutsche Bank analyst Mitch Collett also wrote, referring to Anheuser-Busch InBev, the parent company of Bud Light. “Our proprietary survey data suggests these headwinds are likely to fade even if we do not expect the U.S. business ever to fully recover from its current challenges.”
