Oh bullcrap, they expected the backlash. They are betting on this blowing over and being forgotten, just like the NFL, NASCAR, and all pro-sports wokeness campaigns. Their message gets across, there is some light boycotting and boo-hoo hooing by conservatives, and then 2 weeks later back to spending money on those products. Conservatives are horrible at boycotts and the left knows it.
Here I think AB stepped in it. Really, there are just too many great beers out there.
“Conservatives are horrible at boycotts and the left knows it”
Exactly. If the left were boycotting AB they’d be hijacking beer trucks, threatening drivers, and vandalizing property.
It’s sh!tty beer. This isn’t the NFL.
“Oh bullcrap, they expected the backlash. They are betting on this blowing over and being forgotten, just like the NFL, NASCAR, and all pro-sports wokeness campaigns. Their message gets across, there is some light boycotting and boo-hoo hooing by conservatives, and then 2 weeks later back to spending money on those products. Conservatives are horrible at boycotts and the left knows it.”
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I don’t know about that. You can mess with a lot of things, but once you go after a guy’s garage fridge full of beer, things start to get serious. If there is Bud Light in that fridge, every time he opens that door he is going to see Mulvaney’s face. His friends that come over to hang out will mock him (or at least he is afraid they will), so he makes sure he has a different brand in there for the Friday night BBQ, poker. or darts game. And, once you switch beers you need a strong reason to switch back.
It has been a over a week and this story is still making front page news. Usually brand damages blow over faster than this or the company apologies and works to undo the harm to its brand. Think back on the Coke damage with the new recipe and branding. They had to fix things with Coke Classic and basically apologize for screwing up.
Upper management is already distancing themselves from the decision to feature Mulvaney as an “influencer” and saying they weren’t aware of the campaign. That’s a big step from their original response.
As a beer industry consultant said, it’s not as if AB is going to make up that lost six billion in market share by beer drinkers suddenly consuming twice as much Bud Light this weekend. That money is gone. AB is going to have to do something to stop the bleed. Some Bud Light drinkers are just now finding out about the marketing catastrophe and their favorite beer brand going “woke”. Some will not learn of it until tomorrow when they mention to a co-worker they plan on stopping to get beer on the way home on Friday.
I’ve heard no stories of bars or package stores saying that there was a drop in sales for a few days and then sales of Bud Light went back to normal. All stories continue to be that the beer is not selling and stores are not re-stocking as usual.
We shall see. If it is still a story come Monday, AB will be in serious trouble.
“Conservatives are horrible at boycotts and the left knows it.”
1000s of beers exist and most of them are better than Bud Light anyway, which is the real REAL problem with boycotts when there are a plethora of better alternatives ... folks don’t keep a boycott going indefinitely, they simply abandon their former product because they discover something they like better, a discovery they would have never made in the first place if a boycott hadn’t gotten them up off their arses to try something different than their same ol’ same ol’ ... boycotts inevitably lead to permanently lost customers for that reason ... it NEVER pays to REALLY piss off the majority of your customer base ...
I hate to admit you are correct, but you are correct. Even people on FreeRepublic, who exclaimed to the heavens that they were finished with MLB, NFL and NASCAR. But guess what, look at the threads and see how many have went back, once the outrage had blown over.
Beer is a commodity.
Sports leagues provide a unique product (no, your high school team or even SEC team doesn’t provide football entertainment comparable to the one valid professional league). Not a commodity.
Bud Light and Miller Light both suck. The dude picking up the miller light won’t notice the difference. Not having 18 weeks of entertainment IS a noticeable difference. This one might last, simply because a boycott won’t hurt much.
It’s not about a boycott, which I agree with you that our side sucks at.
This is a level beyond.
They changed the social perception of their product, perhaps permanently. They are now Pro/Supporting homo/trannies brand.
White Claw could absorb that image change…maybe. But that’s death for a cheap bear brand.
“Conservatives are horrible at boycotts and the left knows it.”
This isn’t a conservative boycott - it’s not even a boycott really. It is just normal people being turned off by all this tranny celebration crap.
I’ve owned a bar for 30 years. Ever since this story broke, anyone who asks for a bud light gets laughed at and accused of drinking “tranny beer”. It’s been light hearted but relentless - and believe me - it’s having a profound effect.
What a lot of political pundits don’t seem to realize is that people in bars or at barbecues never went “woke” or “politically correct”. Maybe that happened on school campuses and work places, but normal people who drink beer never lost their sense of humor.