AB InBev needs to challenge Bud Light’s culture war – 04/28/2023 – Market

Anheuser-Busch announced this week that two executives were taking leave after a Bud Light commercial involving Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender actress and influencer on TikTok, became the latest battle in America’s culture wars. Their fate will send chills to many other marketers.

“We never intend to be part of a discussion that divides people. Our business is to bring people together for a beer,” Anheuser-Busch chief executive Brendan Whitworth previously said. Well good luck with that. Bud Light’s sales plummeted after right-wing politicians and celebrities condemned it as a “woke” company and boycotted the brand.

It all started innocently enough, with Mulvaney posting an amusing video to her 1.8 million Instagram followers. “This month I celebrated my 365th day of womanhood and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever, a can with my face on it,” she said. Anheuser-Busch, part of AB InBev, said Mulvaney was one of “hundreds” of influencers it used for its brands.

A well-known firestorm of media outrage and mock offense followed Bud Light’s attempt to expand its market. Alissa Heinerscheid, the brand’s vice president of marketing and one of the two now on leave, took a beating. “She wants to sell to people who, until now, have had little or no interest in buying or drinking Bud Light,” thundered Jim Geraghty in the conservative National Review.

Forgive me, but I thought that was the point of marketing, especially when you’re trying to revive a brand in prolonged decline because fewer Americans who, in your words, “own guns, donate to pro-life causes, or drive a pickup truck” really they buy it. Even before Mulvaney’s video, its US sales volume had fallen 6.4% in the year to March 24, according to Nielsen data.

Either way, the brand doesn’t fit the stereotype of the republican state: it was introduced in 1982 as a lower-carb, less-bitter Budweiser derivative. This was followed by Miller Lite, which originated as a diet beer for calorie counters in the new age of fitness. The beers that now draw sales from both are the more pronounced imported ones, such as Corona, Peroni Nastro Azzurro and Modelo Especial.

Bud Light is a fading asset that needs to regain some prestige among millennials and Gen Z: never mind the gender inclusivity, that’s the economic reality. As Heinerscheid admitted with admirable honesty in a podcast interview, “If we don’t attract young drinkers to come drink this brand, there’s no future for Bud Light.”

Heinerscheid went on (correctly but tactlessly) to describe Bud Light’s traditional marketing as having involved “a kind of group, isolated humor” and to praise its shift to “a truly inclusive campaign.” She was referring not to Mulvaney’s post, but to a Super Bowl commercial in February that showed a young couple dancing to music on hold on a telephone.

I still struggle to understand what was wrong with the ads. Neither the Super Bowl commercial nor the Mulvaney video was abrasive: both were as light as the beer they advertised. In the days before activists on both the right and left began scouring the internet for instant offense, the latter may have gone unnoticed.

Mass brands have always sought to be inclusive, in the sense of pleasing a wide range of consumers. “I’d like to teach the world to sing/ In perfect harmony/ I’d like to buy the world a Coke/ And keep it company,” sang the multiethnic “World’s First United Choir” in the brand’s famous 1971 ad. AB InBev’s hope of building a future that everyone can celebrate and share” is equally corny.

However, it’s more complicated to be vaguely well-intentioned today. Brands that deliberately stir up controversy by taking a stand on social issues, like Nike and Ben & Jerry’s, have a clearer strategy. They alienate some customers and risk boycotts (Nike faced one in the UK after using Mulvaney to promote a sports bra), but energize others.

They also know that protests are feverish and storms often pass as quickly as they come. Sales at Bud Light’s US retail stores were down 17% in mid-April, but AB InBev can afford to be patient: As one academic study found, “campaigns of political consumerism on social media and their portrayal in press are not always reflected in sales results [duradouros]”.

The study was from Goya Foods, the canned bean brand whose chief executive, Robert Unanue, supported Donald Trump in 2020. Goya faced a boycott and a more effective Trumpist campaign to support its products: sales briefly increased 22%, but the effect dissipated completely after three weeks. The same constituency that is now attacking Bud Light got angry and then forgot.

That’s why Anheuser-Busch should stick to its marketing approach rather than weakly wringing its hands. His efforts to expand Bud Light’s reach made perfect sense, and it has since gained free publicity. The outcry doesn’t change the fact that it needs more consumers, whether they’re pickup truck drivers, urban couples or trans actresses. The rest is foam.

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves