Much has been made of Bud Light’s slip from number one to number two in beer sales in the United States.
The dominant argument is that Bud Light is the victim of a “boycott” for becoming too woke.
While the data seems to point that the opposite argument could be at play and that a lack of proper response to the “boycott” of Bud Light was the final push that people needed to move on from Bud Light.
Which argument is correct?
To be fair, it is probably a little bit of both.
My take is that Bud Light has been doing a bad job of managing its brand for a number of years now, committing to a sales and ad-oriented plan that showed them jumping from plan to plan with the whims of the market at any given moment.
In looking at the steps that they are taking now, we are seeing the sales and ad-oriented efforts are still coming strong.
- The summer ad blitz has seen Bud Light ads come in at 3400 times compared to 32 in 2022.
- Bud Light will triple its ad budget to arrest the decline.
- They will use rebates and other price promotions to help “stimulate” demand.
Here are a few things:
- This shows me that Bud Light and the corporate owners haven’t realized the power of branding and marketing to make real changes to their business. Again, the big issue with Bud Light is that it has become old, tired, and dusty despite the “frat” ads. It feels irrelevant and you can see why it would be something that people would find easy to move on from.
- The first time this trend of Modelo making gaines on Bud Light was seen about a decade ago. In a decade, you could refresh your brand and have seen results for a few years. Instead, we’ve seen Bud Light jump from trend to trend with seltzers, fruity beers, and more.
- Price promotions don’t stimulate demand. At best, it pulls demand forward.
The solution for Bud Light is to take a step back and figure out what the brand is going to be going forward.
Strategy before tactics my friends.
Not a focus on ads, promotions, and tepid brand identity.