TheQuartering [4/28/2023]
Anheuser-Busch executives have promised beer distributors that going forward marketing will be heavily screened following Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney backlash.
Bosses held a closed-door meeting with distributors in Washington, DC, this week where they laid out future plans – and promised to ‘spend heavily’ on Bud Light to salvage its public image, according to reports.
Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights, said that spending on the brand ‘fell off a cliff last year,’ but Anheuser-Busch execs are promising to rectify the situation, New York Post reported.
Bud Light sales have fallen dramatically since transgender influencer Mulvaney’s first post with the brand on April 1 – but a fresh marketing push is set to begin this week.
The company is expected to have a big push during the NFL draft in a bid to revive the brand in the coming days, Steinman said.
On top of the marketing blitz, executives working for Bud Light will also go through a more rigorous screening process, according to one Northeast-based beer distributor who spoke to NYP.
‘There will be an improved screening process before any marketing hits the public…executives will have to go through a more rigorous screening process,’ Bud Light execs said during Zoom meetings this month.
According to Beer Business Daily, wholesalers received a letter in which execs explained the entire situation – including: ‘This was one single can given to one social media influencer.
‘This can was not made for production or sale to the general public.’
Beer Business Daily, however, has assessed that Anheuser-Busch’s fallout from the Mulvaney drama ‘is immaterial’ to the company’s global financial performance.
Bud has ‘rebounded to its previous quite lofty heights,’ the trade publication said.
This comes after the number of people ordering Bud Lights at bars and restaurants across the country have plummeted in the weeks following the company’s partnering with Dylan Mulvaney.
Between early to mid-April, Bud Light’s pours were down 6 percent at 3,000 locations, according to research by tech company BeerBoard.
In comparison, between March 18 to April 1 – the two weeks before the transgender influencer partnered with the beer company – Bud Light had actually outperformed in its category by 15 percent.
On April 1, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a video of herself cracking open a Bud Light on her Instagram page. She showed off a can with her face on it that Bud Light sent her – one of many corporate freebies she gets and shares with her millions of followers.
In the six days that followed, Anheuser-Busch lost more than $6billion in market capitalization.