{"id":65892,"date":"2023-05-16T02:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T06:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cablemanpro.com\/wallstreetpr\/the-bud-light-controversy-is-not-going-away-heres-why-65892"},"modified":"2023-05-16T02:00:53","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T06:00:53","slug":"the-bud-light-controversy-is-not-going-away-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cablemanpro.com\/wallstreetpr\/the-bud-light-controversy-is-not-going-away-heres-why-65892","title":{"rendered":"The Bud Light controversy is not going away. Here’s why"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Conventional wisdom holds that controversies blow over, news cycles cycle, and noisy protestors eventually quiet down. That\u2019s certainly what Anheuser-Busch is hoping for amid the controversy surrounding its partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. “It\u2019s too early to have a full view,” said Anheuser-Busch CEO Michel Doukeris <\/a>during the company\u2019s Q1 earnings call recently but “our full-year EBITDA growth outlook is unchanged.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet five weeks into the debacle, sales of Bud Light continue to plummet. Its year-over-year sales are\u00a0down 17% from this time in 2022. All signs indicate that the Bud Light controversy isn\u2019t going away. Why not?<\/p>\n

Social science may hold the key. For years, business school researchers have been studying why some consumer boycotts are successful, while others fail. The results are telling. And does not bode well for Anheuser-Busch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

FORMER ANHEUSER-BUSCH EXECUTIVE SLAMS ‘INAUTHENTIC’ BUD LIGHT FOR HAVING ‘LOST TRACK OF THE CONSUMER’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps intuitively, one\u00a0key factor is whether consumers believe they have the power to impact the company\u2019s bottom line. If a boycott would be futile, there\u2019s no point. Bud Light\u2019s customers, however, are witnessing their success in real time. While most companies report sales figures on a quarterly or annual basis, often on a significant delay, Bud Light sales are released each week. And there\u2019s not much Anheuser Busch can do about it: The figures are reported by a trade publication, based on surveys sent to liquor stores, convenience stores and supermarkets. Anheuser-Busch cannot force the media storm to die down by starving it of data.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the cost of the boycott<\/a> to would-be consumers.\u00a0Research tells us that two key determinants of a boycott\u2019s success are consumers\u2019 “preference for the boycotted product and their access to its substitutes.” When it\u2019s easy to switch to a competitor\u2019s product, boycotts are easier to sustain.<\/p>\n

Real life examples bear this out. One of the most-cited examples of a successful boycott is the 1995 Shell boycott, where consumers boycotted Shell gasoline over the company\u2019s plans to sink an oil platform into the Atlantic Ocean. A critical\u00a0factor<\/a> was that the boycott was virtually costless to consumers: Gas is gas, and the cost of filling up at a different station was quite low.<\/p>\n

BUD LIGHT PARENT COMPANY’S STOCK DOWNGRADED BY HSBC AMID BRANDING ‘CRISIS,’ HUGE SALES DROP<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

When switching is hard, by contrast, boycotts tend to fail. Take Disney\u2019s decision to wade into a political debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Some disgruntled customers\u00a0called for boycotts<\/a>, but Disney\u2019s 2022 revenues ultimately rose\u00a022.7%<\/a> over the previous year. But what choice did Disney\u2019s customers really have? Are parents no longer going to take their kids to Disney World?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or take the calls to boycott the NFL after San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the national anthem. Scores of offended fans flocked to Twitter to vow they\u2019d never watch football again. But they did. This year\u2019s Super Bowl was the\u00a0most-watched<\/a> of all time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bud Light is different. As beer goes, it is not particularly unique. Pour a Bud Light into an unmarked Solo cup, and most people\u00a0can\u2019t distinguish<\/a> it from a Coors Light or a Miller Light or a Pabst Blue Ribbon. Nor do consumers have strong preferences based on taste alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a sense, Bud Light\u2019s easygoing, generic, inoffensive appeal was<\/i> the appeal. That appeal is now gone. But other brands have retained their inoffensive status. That\u2019s likely why as Bud Light\u2019s sales have fallen, Coors and Miller have enjoyed 20.5% and 21% sales boosts in the third week of April, respectively. It might be easy to drive to a different gas station, but it\u2019s really<\/i> easy to reach for something else from 7-Eleven\u2019s beer fridge.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s another reason why Bud Light\u2019s sales have continued to fall, one that seems to elude most commentators: The Bud Light boycotts aren\u2019t driven exclusively, or even primarily, by radical extremists.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Certainly, the most politically devout patrons are the most dissatisfied with Bud Light\u2019s recent brand strategy<\/a>. And the noisiest. But for every\u00a0Kid Rock<\/a> shooting bullets into Bud Light cans on Tik Tok or\u00a0gay bar<\/a> loudly dumping the brand for not being LGBT-friendly enough, there are hundreds if not thousands of Americans who just don\u2019t want their choice in beer to be political\u2014not pro-trans, not anti-trans, not any-trans. Anheuser-Busch\u2019s CEO alluded to this in last week\u2019s earning call: “The beer itself should not be the focus of the debate.”<\/p>\n

But it is. And that doesn\u2019t seem to be changing anytime soon. The Bud Light controversy is therefore more than the latest flash point in the culture wars. It is part of a larger cultural shift. In 2020 and 2021, much of corporate America saw advocating for social issues as an easy way to score points with customers. Boycotts were rare; most people either supported socio-corporate political activism or were too afraid to say otherwise.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, the tide has turned. A poll conducted earlier this year shows that\u00a068% of Americans think that companies that speak out on social issues do it as a marketing ploy. And a study out earlier this month shows that Americans are much more likely to\u00a0distrust institutions<\/a> they view as politicized\u2014even when they take political positions that align with their views. In today\u2019s heated political environment, the surest course for companies\u2014particularly those in high-visibility, competitive markets\u2014is to focus on their brand and stay out of the debates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anheuser-Busch is no exception. To correct course, Anheuser-Busch must publicly commit to staying out of political issues moving forward. Anheuser-Busch may have had to learn this lesson the hard way, but for other companies, the lesson should be much easier to swallow.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source – https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/opinion\/bud-light-controversy-going-away <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conventional wisdom holds that controversies blow over, news cycles cycle, and noisy protestors eventually quiet down. That\u2019s certainly what Anheuser-Busch is hoping for amid the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_2902945987_2902945987":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[16563],"tags":[],"stock_ticker":[],"class_list":["post-65892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Bud Light controversy is not going away. 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