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.
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.
They’ve been marketing to the queer community for years now. They were probably expecting business as usual.
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.
They should’ve known that americans aren’t ready to accept human rights
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.