Two market analysts gave grim news to Bud Light, with one predicting there would be “no recovery” for the boycott-beleaguered brand in 2023.
“We assume no recovery in Bud Light [this year],” RBC Capital Markets analyst James Jones wrote in a note this week, according to Yahoo Finance.
Recent sales data show that retail-store dollar sales of the brand dropped 26.1 percent in the week ending July 15 and 26.8 percent in the week ending July 22, compared with the previous year. Meanwhile, the beer lost its No. 1 spot to Modelo Especial in May and June, according to figures.
“Recent data continues to show that tracked channels reached a point of stabilization at significantly lower levels for Anheuser-Busch InBev than pre-controversy,” Evercore ISI analyst Robert Ottenstein added in a separate note, according to Yahoo.
The slump in sales came after Bud Light made a promotional package for a transgender TikTok activist, Dylan Mulvaney, sparking backlash and sales declines. The company has not directly addressed the transgender controversy, although its U.S. chief executive said the brand never sought to be part of a divisive issue.
In May, the CEO of AB-InBev, Michel Doukeris, attempted to distance the beer brand with the Mulvaney incident and said that only “one can” with the influencer’s face was produced.
“It was one post. It was not an advertisement,” Mr. Doukeris told Financial Times in May.
The influencer was not part of an official marketing campaign, Mr. Doukeris said. He added that social media-driven “misinformation” and “confusion” were part of the problem, without elaborating.
In the call, Mr. Doukeris said his company would triple its investment in Bud Light over the summer. At the same time, it would provide bonuses and incentives to front-line workers like drivers.
But Bump Williams, president of Bump Williams Consulting, told the Wall Street Journal that spending more to fix the problem won’t do much.
“The Bud Light shopper who’s left the brand has zero interest in coming back,” Mr. Williams said, “so you can spend all the money you want, but until you fix the problem—apologize and admit you made a mistake—it’s wasted money.”
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