Anheuser-Busch Inbev says that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales.
Anheuser-Busch Inbev said Tuesday that revenue growth in most of its global regions was offset by a drop in North American sales, in a sign of continuing fallout from a promotion with a transgender influencer that cost it sales.
The world’s largest brewer and parent company of Bud Light said adjusted earnings for the latest quarter rose 4.1% to $5.4 billion on revenues that climbed 5% to $15.6 billion.
Revenue in the United States for the July-September period, however, tumbled 13.5%. AB InBev, based in Leuven, Belgium, noted that sales to retailers were down “primarily due to the volume decline of Bud Light.”
Bud Light sales plunged amid a conservative backlash after the brand sent a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in early April.
Rightwingers started making a bunch of noise. And AB immediately caved to them. Making the vast majority of everyone else not want to buy their products either.
If they stayed on course the drop probably wouldn't happen. Instead they managed to piss of the majority of Americans on both sides.
I wonder what percentage of people who would be put off by Budweiser caving to bigots so quickly would actually regularly drink Budweiser in the first place?
Have you seen the way those hipsters guzzle PBR? Do you really think it tastes any better than Budweiser? Image is EVERYTHING when you're selling cheap beer. Budweiser could have cemented its place as a progressive all-inclusive all-american beer. Instead they gave in to the bullies, an act that no bully can respect.
The people who drink Budweiser and Bud Light are the people who buy cheap beer. Whether it's at a bar or stocking up for a party, it's like buying chips or pizza, you aren't thinking too hard about it. Miller or Busch or PBR or Coors or Old Style or Michelob or any other roughly equivalent beer (half of which are also owned by AB) works just as well. Budweiser gave people a reason to think about their beer, and didn't give anyone a reason to think positively about their beer. If you are looking at the available options, and one of them is associated with bigotry, you're going to pick anything else.
A vanishingly small percentage. The kind of people that care about inclusivity and LGBTQ+ rights aren't the kind of people that drink Budweiser. Their core demographic skews very heavily to the dude bro side of things. They pissed off a significant chunk of their existing customers, and then by immediately backtracking lost any potential new customers they might have picked up. They basically made the worst possible set of decisions they could have.
Yeah that’s the question. Like I’d’ve stopped buying their beer over them caving if I hadn’t stopped buying their beer over it tasting eerily similar to some nonalcoholic beers.
If you cave to conservative backlash and stop supporting me then I stop supporting you.
I generally won't drink Bud, but I used to tolerate it at shows just to get something alcoholic that wouldn't break the bank. As is, I'd rather spend more than have two shitty tastes in my mouth...
Worst part was they hung Dylan out to dry. She didn’t ask for the partnership, they wanted to use her for her demo. Then, when bigots started losing their minds, they threw her under the bus. They offered zero guidance or support of any kind. After unleashing the hate and vitriol of assholes across the country, silence.
Fuck everyone involved at InBev.
Manipulator&Sons PR Advice for major corporations:
Step 1) (mostly applies to Americans) Hire a propaganda specialist to monitor current news propaganda cycles that will inform marketing on current minefields.
Step 2) Don't step in political minefields created by said propagandists.
What I don't get is all the people pointing out Bud Light doesn't taste good like it's a recent discover or new change...
Like, do you all really think people are out their drinking shitty light beer because they like the taste?
They're drinking it because it's cheap and they can drink a case a day by themselves.
Hell, back in college if someone showed up with Budweiser, they got shit for wasting money on "expensive" beer. Normally everyone just bought whatever was the cheapest option, because how it tasted was the absolute lowest priority when getting enough booze for 50-100 broke college kids to binge drink.
What's funny is that you can spend less money on some cheap ass bottom shelf wine that has a higher alcohol content. You get drunk faster, for less money and you don't have to drink as much if that's your goal. You just won't look cool being the kid showing up to the rager with bottles of Bare Foot or Yellow Tail.
I didn't understand that campaign... Bud Light has always been the wilfully shitty and boring beer that appeals to (and I'm trying to be diplomatic here... ) blue collar types or those that don't really have a discerning palate.
Millennials and Zoomers by and large don't drink that much beer. Gender neutral/accepting club kids don't drink beer. If they're drinking anything, it's likely cocktails or white claw. In the odd event they went for beer it would be something quirky or higher quality than Bud fucking Light. Presumably Bud was trying to appeal to that crowd since their chief demographic is stagnant, but Bud Light was silly to not go after a group adjacent to their core audience but instead court a fickle segment of the population who doesn't give half a fuck about what they're selling and moreover is full on HATED by who already consumed their beer. Bud has decades of cultural weight about being a conservative, blue collar beer... that matters for better or worse
For the record: I'm glad a brand like Bud (who I have zero love for) made overtures to the trans community... even if it was crass commercialization. From a purely capitalist perspective, it made zero sense for a brand like Bud. What's worse, due to Bud's misstep, bigots now feel emboldened and other brands might make the decision to not be inclusive after watching this play out
Trans allies (and open minded folks in general) by and large moved on from tasteless American adjunct lagers a decade ago and drink completely different beer. Bud is a relic. Trying to give it a hurried makeover won't suddenly make it cool. Jumping into the culture war fray and folding the instant bigots complained just fucked things up Bud's appeal for anyone whose attention they had
I will say that the trans community where I am definitely are beer drinkers but overwhelmingly the vibe is locally produced stuff. I know at least two trans folk who run breweries. Maybe folk who conquer the lows of discontentment with one's body and place in society to finally live as their most authentic self despite the cultural blowback are gunna be a little more aspirational in their self care than Bud Lite?
Beer is the preferred alcoholic beverage of 69% of men aged 18 to 29, 65% of men aged 30 to 49, 52% of men aged 50 to 64, and 39% of men aged 65 and older
Millennials and Gen Z drink beer at higher rates than other generations
Trans allies (and open minded folks in general) by and large moved on from tasteless American adjunct lagers a decade ago and drink completely different beer. Bud is a relic.
InBev is anus and their generic beers are mostly horrible. People should have already been boycotting them long ago for being a soulless international conglomerate.
Chances are there is a local or regional brew that corresponds to whatever mass market swill they produce, and people should drink those small local brewery offerings instead.
No no, tasting like piss is not the issue here. They never once complained about drinking the worst made beer ever.
Clearly the issue was someone once gave 6 beers to someone they don’t like.
I mean, once that person posted on social media… well bigotry requires that they must shout about people “shoving this issues down my throat” and act like an asshole.
I mean that person who got 6 free beers posted a fucking picture about in the internet… can you believe that? From now on you gotta buy piss from someone else. I bet they’re not “woke” in South Africa…
Conservatism is a plague of oppression. If you are not with them, you are against them.
The disease of conservatism is long overdue for a cure. Do your part by teaching your children why it is inappropriate to keep relationships with conservatives
So are all of the top-selling beers in the world, and especially in America (which is the subject of this article).
We get it. You're into craft beer that costs $20/pint. I like them on occasion myself. But when I want to get drunk on beer cheaply, I'm not going to my local brewery. I'm not even going to Great Lakes or Same Adams. I'm going for a cheap, light, mass-produced pilsner. PBR, Coors, Miller Lite, Bud Light, Youngling, etc. They're all the same cheap swill.
It's the same with everything. The average person who isn't an enthusiast consumes tons of mediocre junk. Taylor Swift is probably a good analog for music: I don't see a lot of academic musicians analyzing the new music theory she's implementing, or literary analysts dissecting her lyrics. Marvel Movies are getting famous for being pretty much the same heroes journey with rushed CGI every 6 months or so. Tons of people still watch shows like Friends, the Office, and Seinfeld. McDonald still sells billions of burgers in spite of the existence of high-end restaurants.
And that's okay. Not everything. You consume needs to be some ultra-expensive artisanal elitist product.
As for Bud Light in particular, this is a a great example of a bad PR team. Either stick to your guns or don't enter the fight in the first place. The fact that they've backed down and caved to transphobes means they're much lower on my list now.
Excellent take, but in defense of the AB PR team, I don't think they were expecting so much backlash from giving a 6 pack of beer to a trans person. I think it was just a small promotion they were doing and they were not anticipating this blowing up into something big. Right wing Twitter caught wind of it and made it a much bigger deal than it was.
They did something very triggering to a group of people that are extremely easily triggered. To a normal person it seems like no big deal on the surface. From a business stand point, it makes zero sense to promote your product to people who don't like it, while triggering a huge chunk of your faithful patrons.
But if you're trying to get drunk as fast as you can for as cheap as possible without any regard for taste, there are are products out there that have higher alcohol content and cost less than all of those products you named. Wouldn't that be a more efficient means to an end?
Yeah it really was a shit thing to back down on it. The right won't buy their beer anymore because Busch tried to support trans people
But now the left won't buy it because they lack conviction to stick to their word.
As you said, they shouldn't have entered the arena, or stuck to their imagery now that they're associated with it (for better or worse). Now they're paying the price of being a bunch of wet-noodles.
You can find bottles for over $100 of you look for them.
I'll admit I'm exaggerating a bit for effect here. Wine, Whisk(e)y, pretty much every other alcohol is the same. It also depends on if you get it at some fancy restaurant or a case at a wholesaler.
Southern Tier PumKing is a seasonal Halloween brew that's pretty expensive. I see my local spot is advertising it for $16 for 4 12oz bottles. $16 will also get you 12 12oz bottles of Miller Lite, so 3x the volume for the same price. Southern Tier a moderately-sized brewery: not one of the big ones, but not a local microbrewery either. I can also see there is a listing for Weldwerks Old Rio Medianoche for $428.99 for 12 16oz bottles.
So Miller Lite is $0.11 per oz, PumKing is $0.33 per oz, and $2.23 per oz for the super expensive stuff.
I'm only familiar with the "controversy" from the headlines, but I don't quite understand what pissed off the conservatives so much. Budweiser just sent this person a custom-branded 6-pack or something, right?
Every company sells their product to people from all walks of life, it's just not always publicized. The fact that they choose to rage against Budweiser of all brands is just ridiculous to me. Now if they were complaining about the quality of the beer, that I might understand.
Rightwing influencers need content just like every other influencer. They found out about the promotion and then went to work making the videos that would drive their audiences absolutely insane over this nonsense.
To them, simply recognizing a trans person as their name or gender they present as is enough to mean that you want to groom children. So because Busch didn't call Dylan a "he" or whatever her dead name was, suddenly Busch is supporting the indefinite rape of children. Their minds only go to the absolute extremes, and the only way to make them back down from their ingrained views is to be a family member or friend who knows them personally.
Idk... It's not a good product. I don't think they were ever going to gain market share outside their "traditional" market.
If they wanted to address that market, they should have created a new quality product and target that instead of messing with their established base.
I'm not saying this because I agree with what has happened, but just speaking objectively given the fact that a lot of the macro beer mkt is a bunch of backwards ass morons.
I mean, I don't drink it, but to say. It's awful isn't accurate. It's just not for you. As nature cat said, "don't yuck someone else's yum"
As an amateur home brewer I've always been amazed by the consistency of these large lager producers. I brewed a couple lagers and they were neither good nor consistent.
"Have you ever tried to set up your own internet service provider? It's actually really difficult and we should be thanking Comcast for all the hard work they do."
Honestly their Belgian beers (Leffe and Hoegaarden) are not bad for commercial beers. Probably not as good as local low volume brewery, but definitely better than Bud/Corona
They posted about trans issues and removed it so the conservatives think they support it and the trans people think they're liars (they are). They kind of get the worse of both worlds now, if they stuck with supporting trans rights, they could've at least retained the lgbt+ market
Really doubt it was because of this one incident, conservatives just sensationalize anything to do with trans people. Like...
Budwieser is a trash product. Everyone knows it. Anybody with taste buds who wants to drink will grab anything else.
But ofc it makes business sense to blame it on us trans people, like this was anything, like Budweiser ever did shit for us in the first place...
Iirc they backed a trans influencer drawing conservative outrage, then, after realizing that the conservatives were a large part of their customer base, they did a 180 and publicly cut ties with the influencer thereby also alienating the customers they hoped to gain in the first place while also not gaining back much of their conservative customers.
Someone feel free to fact check me I'm drawing on memory here.
Eh you are forgetting the spot where the conservative snowflakes also just started buying different beer from anheuser-busch because they don't know how companies are structured and thought bud light was a whole company. They haven't lost money here just the share of money coming from bud light in north America has shifted to other beers they own.
But ofc it makes business sense to blame it on us trans people, like this was anything, like Budweiser ever did shit for us in the first place...
You realize it's just more rage bait right? The parent company here complaining has seen increased growth in subsidiaries like Corona because the lot getting bent out of shape over bud light just bought other bear made by the same parent company. They didn't lose money it's just coming from different beers now. Fuck the wall street noise here
Modelo is AB InBev outside the US. Inside the US, it’s Constellation Brands, which is totally different company. So it’s not the same company in the US.
And in trying to save the transphobe dollar, they pissed off everyone else. Maybe this will teach companies to just support them and ignore what the right wing/transphobes (I know, I repeat myself) complain about, because you know you can't count on them once you capitulate.
And in trying to save the transphobe dollar, they pissed off everyone else.
How does no article seem to get this? I was geared up to buy cases of bud light for my 4th of July bash, explicitly because of the conservative reaction to that event. I don't even like Bud Light generally, though I'll admit a cold Bud Light Lime in the summertime can be refreshing. Then Anheuser-Busch fired the people responsible and backtracked.
Nope.
Now you have lost the business of the bigots and the allies, Anheuser-Busch, well fucking played. You deserve this "hardship" (which we all know is a blip at most) for having no fucking spine and caving to bigots.
It’s bad to beer snobs/craft bros, but to most normal people it’s refreshing when served cold. Not much flavor going on with BL, but most people who drink it aren’t looking for pumpkin spice or hops or whatever in their beverage - they just want a cold beer that’s smooth and refreshing.
I can see how that would be a thing. My father likes drinking some local beer that is basically equal to drainage water. On the other hand I like German or Czech lager, depending on the mood. He usually doesn't touch my beer saying it's too expensive for his taste. Not sure how 1$ for good 0.5l beer is too expensive for 0.7$ garbage but am not going to argue with him. He actually prefers beer that I drink and enjoys it when he runs out of bad stuff. It's just that he keeps buying that garbage.
I'm not too picky with beer and am happy to try anything, from crappy macros to the local brew pub's experiment with jalapenos. For me, these macro lagers serve the same function as soda but aren't as sweet. They're just something to wash down pizza or Chinese food while I'm watching a movie. Yes, there are "craft" sodas that cost a lot of money but Shasta is cheaper and gets the job done.
Craft brews here can be bloody amazing. The big name mass produced domestics tend to be watery, with little pleasantness to the flavor. Some are God awful, but most are the beer equivalent of a plain potato chip. Pleasant enough in the moment, but you'll forget about it not long after.
Bud light is awful. It's watered down and barely has a flavor. American beer is not bad in general anymore, but it definitely used to be. This is one of the beers from the hayday of shitty American beer.
I like Mexican beers in the summer. They have significantly different and lighter taste than what we have here, but with lemon they are very refreshing. Is it the same kind of lighter taste or even more watered down?
American Light Macro-Lagers are popular because they're cheap. But if you want to try one I'd recommend Coors Light over Bud Light. Also the US is hotter and a light beer is best when you've been out in 100°F heat for a while.
But if you want something better there are tons of other breweries all around the country. You'd probably have a hard time getting anything from the smaller ones in europe but you can probably get something from one of the larger ones like Shiner.
Yep. GTA 4 came out in 2008 - 15 years ago - and features the beer brand "Pißwasser", which is clearly mocking Budweiser's name and branding - particularly Bud Light's. It's been a joke for a long time.
American/Canadian lagers are basically fizzy rice water with a little bit of alcohol in them. It's not beer as a European would know it. I've had and made plenty of lagers, lager can be tasty, bodied and still refreshing. The only thing these have going for them is the latter.
Yep. Even some local lagers have been disappointing to me... your standard options are way better in Europe than anywhere here vis-a-vis. Just like Canadian healthcare, us Canucks can say at least we're slightly better with our beers than the US.
Don't count on my word for taste of beer though, stuff enough hops in it and I'm a happy camper...
The macro brewed stuff is about as bad as any other macro brew like Carlsberg or Stella Artois. There are tons of good locally/regionally brewed beer though which comes in any manner of styles.
Yeah, this is one of those cases of not knowing your own market. While what they did was laudable in a general sense, they should have also realized their core demographic is heavily conservative and that such a move was highly likely to hurt them far more than it would benefit them.
Bud in general and Bud Light in particular is just the worst kind of swill. It's only redeeming quality is being cheap.
That's really overselling what it was. They made ONE can with the special print, the also made a number of other special cans for other influencers that weren't "woke". This was supposed to be a quiet nod to the LGBTQ+ community, which also drinks a reasonable amount of bud light, just like the rainbow tap handle my local gay bar has for it on tap.
How or why the right-wing outrage machine landed on this as the outrage du jour, who knows? But they and most major brands do stuff like this all the time, they just got really unlucky.
Also worth noting, beer sales in general, and especially big brand light lagers have been declining. Attributing all of Bud Lights decline to this one instance ignores a lot of other trends.
Yeah I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this was calculated to coincide with the decline. It’s a nice easy win to call for a boycott of something of declining popularity.
I meant the original move, not the immediate backtracking. They started from a laudable position by at least attempting to be somewhat inclusive, then of course immediately fucked it up once their quarterly profits looked like they might take a hit.
I think they just didn't appreciate our current media environment well enough. They thought they could try to expand sales to new customers with a TikTok ad campaign that their core consumers would never see. What they didn't plan for was the fact that right-wing "news" has become pure Christian nationalist grievance propaganda that scours social media for anything they can use to outrage their audience; they didn't expect that their little TikTok ad campaign would become the biggest story in the right-wing outrage ecosystem for weeks.
What they didn't plan for was the fact that right-wing "news" has become pure Christian nationalist grievance propaganda
If they didn't expect that their head has been in the same for eons. I think this is the leadership of the company making decisions based on their environment and what investors wanted. They knew it would piss off the right. They assumed the right was irrelevant.
Which might be true in like 40 years, but for now the kids they're appealing to aren't drinking beer. Hell. The way trends are going they never will. Alcohol to my knowledge isn't nearly as popular as it was, and people see it for what it is among the younger generations.
No amount of rainbows and trans influencers will convince people to start drinking poison. But your average idiot with no sense of the consequences of their actions?
If you look there’s plenty of cheap beers that taste at least a little better. When I was in college in the 00s I’d drink Lion’s Head for like $10 a case.
Plus they had little puzzles under the caps so it’s got more value.
Hmm fair enough. Its only redeeming quality then is being cheap and well known. Really there's no good reason to drink Bud, even before they pulled this stunt they were crap.
If the only choice is Bud Light, I will just have water. Bud Light and Coors Light are just the worst beers I can imagine. Not even worth considering. I'd just as soon be 100% sober then drink one.
The beer I hate the most is Michelob Ultra. It's not even that it's gross, it's not that notable, I've had beers that made me want to vomit. MU is just so boring, it's so bland it's not even refreshing. If it was disgusting I could dismiss it at just "not my thing" but there was just nothing notable. If beer was body language, MU would be a shrug.
The most disgusting beer I've had was St Arnolds 5 O'clock Pills.
You must not have had a lot of beers if those are the worst beers you can imagine. It’s a low abv light lager, there’s a time and place. Like floating or tailgating. It certainly doesn’t taste foul, just doesn’t taste like much.
The worst beer is called Name Tag from Trader Joe's. I couldn't even finish one as a joke. I thought it might have gone bad so I opened another and it was the same. I ended up tossing the whole 6 pack. Some beer is crap and I'm just not that desperate.
I'm not against Dylan Mulvaney or any other trans person, but what did Bud Light expect? Did they think that appealing to the lgbt community and its supporters would garner more sales? The fact of the matter is their beer is trash and the only people that seem to still drink it are people that clearly are either neutral on or actively against trans rights. This is a textbook case of not knowing your demographic.
Idk what you mean. They've been working the queer community for a long while now. It's only this specific thing really that conservatives got mad over, cause one asshole talking head covered it as if it was the end of the world.
They also pissed off a bunch of the people they were hoping to market toward by just leaving Dylan out on their own after the fact.
It sucks that, in this situation there are sides, but “picking a side” in the debate, realizing you made people mad and responding by sticking your head in the sand is a great way to piss off everyone that cares. Either they really don’t care and did it as a marketing stunt or they did care until it affected their money. Either way, they showed just how soulless AB is.
Their market is, in fact, everyone with a mouth that is of age to consume alcohol. Appealing to consumers across demographics is literally how they became the top selling beer in the first place. I've lost track of the number of pride events I've seen them sponsor over the years. A savvy company would have siezed the opportunity to show a shared enjoyment of product across demographics.
Yeah, I think they really should've just stayed out of the whole thing altogether or just stuck to small token gestures, if they weren't going to actually try to change their beer at all.
Most people that are supportive of the LGBT community probably weren't drinking Bud Light to begin with. They're more likely to be "beer snobs", more discerning, more likely to be the crowd going for craft brews, less generic brands, maybe even staying away from beer altogether. They would more likely equate Bud Light to piss, worse than just having a water.
The MAGA crowd on the other hand, probably grew up with their parents drinking Bud Light, so that's what they're going to drink, because that's what good ol' American boys drink when watching sports and nascar and whatever else. As long as Bud Light didn't rock the boat, they were a staple brand for "honest, hard-working Americans".
They sent a 6 pack of special cans to one person. They didn't market they were doing it. They didn't sell them. They didn't do an entire canning run of the special cans for some event. They did almost the bare minimum. And your response is they should have "stuck to small token gestures." If giving a 6 pack of cheap beers to one person isn't a token gesture, I don't know what is.