The hits just keep coming for Bud Light.
After pushing all of their chips to the middle of the table and gambling on Dylan Mulvaney and Alissa Heinerschneid to rescue the brand from “fratty,” out of touch culture, the fallout just a month and a half later is stunning. Not only has the brand and company lost billions, but the company has irreparably damaged the image of their signature product.
It simply is uncool to drink Bud Light now.
One would expect the firestorm to eventually burn itself out, but AB has more ominous storm clouds on the horizon, and the future is bleak. Check this out.
Nearly two full months into the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco, alarms bells are ringing 24/7 at Anheuser-Busch as sales, stocks and future earnings continue to tumble.
The latest wave of storm clouds comes from Investor’s Business Daily, which said Tuesday Anheuser-Busch’s market value has already dropped a staggering $15.7 billion since April 1.
That is a billion, with a “b.” That is also more zeros than AB ever dreamed they would be losing when they haphazardly decided to cut a check and a half dozen cans to Dylan Mulvaney.
Choosing not to drink Bud Light or shop at Target isn’t cancel culture. I explain: pic.twitter.com/1ahbPsbn6n
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 25, 2023
This isn’t just a layman’s opinion either. Lets see what JP Morgan analyst Jared Binges had to say:
“We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future,”
“We believe a 12% to 13% volume decline on an annualized basis would be a reasonable assumption.”
Kids, that is a lot more Pabst Blue Ribbon, Yuengling, and Miller High Life being consumed by the very fratty, out of touch consumers that Bud Light wanted to move on from.
The general consensus in the industry was Bud Light would suffer for a few weeks before beer-swilling 20-somethings everywhere went back to drinking the entry level light beer.
What they didn’t account for is the blue-collar, everyday Joe’s that clung to the brand all of these years. Those consumers have had enough of the far left agenda, and they are pushing back hard, with their money.
Meanwhile, other brands are thriving.
While sales and stocks over at Mulvaney Light have plunged steadily, literally everyone else is in the green.
According to investors, other major publicly traded global beer brands have added $3.2 billion in market value since Bud Light plastered Mulvaney on a can back on April 1.
Sales have fallen off a cliff for Bud Light — the recent numbers show another 23% drop — while Coors Light, Miller Lite, Modelo and Yuengling are also soaring. Meanwhile, JPMorgan analysts believe Anheuser-Busch earnings could plunge nearly 26% by the end of this fiscal year in October.
Shares are already down nearly 12% since April 1, while Molson Coors is up more than 20%.
This is a true nightmare scenario for Bud Light. No one at the brand ever imagined that going woke would have the repercussions that it has. Should they have? The trends say yes. American’s are simply sick of far left ideology being forced down their throats. Hollywood has suffered, network television has suffered, but no one was expecting consumers to finally put their money where their morals are.
Even the mainstream media is taking note:
“Nobody imagined it would go on this long,” Beer Business Daily editor and publisher Harry Schuhmacher said, according to NBC.
“It seems random — it struck a nerve. I’ve never seen anything to compare it to, in all of the [consumer packaged goods] industry. It’s a real shock.”
Truly, AB has pissed off the wrong people. Will other companies learn? Nike, Adidas and others say “no”. However, Target is the latest corporation to draw the ire of consumers, and we will see if regular Americans can send another message. Maybe at some point corporate America will learn that when you “go woke, you go broke.”
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