Bud Light is launching a new ad campaign designed to show the beer is “easy to drink and enjoy” after two months of backlash over working with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch’s CEO for America, announced that the company would “invest” to protect the jobs of their frontline workers – highlighting the impact plummeting sales have had on the brand.
Anheuser-BuschBud Light’s parent company has seen its market cap reach $27 billion after a disastrous partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Sales are down 24 percent, according to the latest data, with Modelo Especial dethroning Bud Light as the top-selling beer in America after holding the top spot for 22 years.
Whitworth also plans to hit the road this summer in connection with Budweiser’s MLB sponsorship — with pundits speculating it’s an attempt to fight back and regain market share.
Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch CEO for America, announced that the company would “invest” to protect their jobs for their frontline workers
Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, has seen its market cap drop by $27 billion after a disastrous partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney
In an announcement on Thursday, he admitted that the “discussion around our company and Bud Light has moved away from beer, and this has impacted our consumers, our business partners and our employees.”
Whitworth added: ‘We are a beer company and beer is for everyone. Today we are announcing three key actions as we continue to develop our business.
“Firstly, we are investing to protect the jobs of our frontline workers. Second, we provide financial support to our independent wholesalers to help them support their employees.
Third, to all our valued consumers, we hear you. Our summer commercial launches next week, and you can look forward to Bud Light reinforcing what you’ve always loved about our brand: that it’s easy to drink and easy to enjoy.
“As we move forward, we’ll focus on what we do best: brewing great beer and earning our spot in moments that matter to you. To a future with more cheer.’
The ad campaign kicks off next week and will portray Bud Light as “easy to drink and easy to enjoy.”
It’s one of the few times the company has directly addressed the controversy surrounding its partnership with Mulvaney — as bosses initially claimed an “outside agency made the move to work with Mulvaney without management awareness or approval.”
Anheuser-Busch said earlier this month it would triple its marketing spending in the US this summer to boost distressed sales.
Sales have plummeted 24 percent, according to the latest data, after Modelo especial dethroned Bud Light as the top-selling beer in America after holding the top spot for 22 years
Anheuser-Busch is led by US CEO Brendan Whitworth, former Navy lieutenant, CIA officer and Harvard Business School graduate who joined AB in 2014
In the week ending June 3, Bud Light sales fell a whopping 24.4 percent, after falling 23.9 percent the previous week.
Year-to-date, Bud Light has recorded a 9.5 percent drop in sales, while Modelo’s bounce has reported a spike of 8.5 percent.
It is the first time since 2001 that Bud Light is not in the top spot, having dethroned its sister brand Budweiser for the title of ‘King of Beer’ in 2001.
In the four weeks ending May 28, Modelo Especial store sales surpassed $333 million, up 15.6 percent from the same period last year.
Modelo surpassed Bud Light’s $297 million — which was a 22.8 percent drop in revenue compared to the same time last year.
It comes after former Anheuser-Busch employees claimed Fox News digital that the partnership with Mulvaney could have been a “strategic” attempt to permanently change the brand’s audience.
The anonymous former employee said, ‘This is the worst; it’s like the worst time yet, the best timing yet as a company tries to change the way it operates on a corporate level. And that’s just my opinion.
Mulvaney posted the content on the occasion of the NCAA March Madness tournament, sparking a backlash against Bud Light
Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth issued this public statement two weeks after the controversy
Modelo surpassed Bud Light’s $297 million — which was a 22.8 percent drop in sales compared to the same time last year — after Bud’s disastrous partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney
“Many of us talk about that as if we planned it in some way… as a strategic destruction of Bud Light.
“Bud Light has been failing for years. We’ve been talking about that for years. The numbers of just, you know, getting worse little by little. And it feels like they said, ‘Let’s put this nail in the coffin.
‘Now we have a lot of layoffs, a lot of loss of production. It would be easy for them to restructure, say, pay or contracts.
It’s too obvious they wouldn’t do this by accident and not expect these repercussions. Anyone could tell you what was going to happen.’
The details of how the fiasco broke out remain secret, though the boycott continues to affect sales and market value of the compromised brand.
Since Mulvaney’s post went live on her Instagram on April 1, Anheuser-Busch has tanked more than $27 billion in market capitalization and two senior marketing executives have stepped down.
The brand’s deposed marketing chief, Alissa Heinerscheid, 39, said she planned to update the “fratty” and “out of touch” branding. VP for Mainstream Brands Daniel Blake, 34, also took voluntary leave earlier this year following the controversy
Transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney crosses a street in NYC on Tuesday night in a look inspired by Wes Anderson’s new movie, Asteroid City
The brand’s deposed marketing chief, Alissa Heinerscheid, 39, said she planned to update the “fratty” and “out of touch” branding.
VP for Mainstream Brands Daniel Blake, 34, also took voluntary leave earlier this year following the controversy.
Heinerscheid’s job was taken over by Todd Allen, who recently served as global vice president of Budweiser.
The marketing decision appears to be one of the worst in US history to come from a backlash in advertising.
Only JC Penney has beaten Anheuser-Bush, seeing their shares plummet more than 25 percent in 2012 after they featured a lesbian couple and their daughter in an ad.
They also hired Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson and eventually fired their then-CEO Ron Johnsons, who defended the move.
Michel Doukeris, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev, downplayed the impact of the setback, saying that Bud Light sales declines in the first three weeks of April in the US represented only 1 percent of InBev’s global volumes.
Sales of the Modelo Especial stores rose above $333 million in the four weeks ended May 28 — an increase of 15.6 percent over the same period last year
“We believe we have the experience, resources and partners to manage this,” Doukeris said on a conference call with investors in May.
Mulvaney finally broke her silence about the backlash last week, telling the magazine “them” she prefers not to name her critics “because it gives them the satisfaction of believing I’m thinking of them.”
“It shows my followers that I stand up for myself, but also emphasizes that their story is loud enough to matter,” she added.
Mulvaney teamed up with the brewing giant as part of their March Madness campaign in April and was gifted a can of light beer, an image of her face.
The hangover from the catastrophic advertising push has been going on since the collaboration was released in early April.
It immediately sparked outrage and a boycott began soon after, prompted in part by Kid Rock opening fire on cans of Bud Light while wearing a MAGA hat.
Several famous faces have criticized the brand for their decision, after the pro-Trump singer shot the cans and remarked, “F*** Bud Light, and f*** Anheuser-Busch. Have a great day.’
Country singer Travis Tritt also said he removed all Anheuser-Busch products from his tour bus because of the partnership.
John Rich also publicly denounced the brand, saying he would pull the beer from his Nashville bar.