Posted on 08/04/2023 10:43:29 PM PDT by 11th_VA
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that "Bud Light sales might never fully regain the ground they have lost to competitors" as stores clear their shelves to make room for other brands...
On Thursday, Anheuser-Busch InBev also announced that it would be laying off hundreds of workers.
The Wall Street Journal noted that as Bud Light sales continue "cratering," the "biggest beneficiary of Bud Light’s woes" is rival company Molson Coors Beverage.
"There are reasons to believe that Bud Light sales might be permanently impaired. Molson Coors Chief Executive Gavin Hattersley said on a conference call with analysts that retailers are already reallocating space to other brands during shelf resets that take place in the spring, with more resets to come in the fall," The Journal reported. "In bars and other on-premise channels, the company (Coors) gained more than 12,000 tap handles in the quarter, he added."
Washington Post journalist Megan McArdle responded to The Journal’s report, "I remain shocked by the durability of the effects of the conservative boycott on Bud Light. WSJ reports that retailers are now reallocating shelf space to other brands, which will help lock in the decline."
…
An anonymous beer distributor told the New York Post on Monday about how Bud Light as a brand may never fully recover from its controversy, partially because of the nature of the beer market itself.
"Consumers have made a choice," the executive told The Post. "They have left [Bud Light] and that’s how it’s going to be. I don’t envision a big percentage of them coming back."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
At my regular grocery store, the Bud Light portion of the beer section has all but vanished. I saw three 12-packs there Thursday and that was it.
There’s no reason having old skanky beer nobody wants
👍
Bud's steep drop in market share is disastrous because the decline is sales is going to result in retailers cutting down on the shelf space for Bud products and re allocating that lost space to competitors
AB will have a very difficult time clawing back the lost space from their competitors once they have lost it.
I love happy news 📰📰📰📰
Retail shelf space is valuable. Stores charge for premium locations on the shelves and also want products that will keep people coming in
With stuff like beer, where there are many alternatives, once you’ve given a customer a reason to leave, then he needs a good reason to come back to you.
The beer equivalent of the theater saying “You could shoot moose in the lobby” when there are few paying customers.
Molson Coors is just as woke but never used a pretend girls to sell pretend beer. I stick to the fine local brew pubs. It is more expensive for sure but the “macrobeers” (great ad campaign from Miller by the way) are just so boring.
Tomato juice, orange juice, chocolate milk, coffee...
Regards,
It’s not a “conservative boycott”. It’s a banishment of anti American morals and principals.
I figured the reallocation phase would have already begun, certainly by the 4 of July week.
I don’t think there really was a boycott as much as a preference shift. Sure, many people loudly advocated stiffing the brand. But so many people were either personally insulted (fratboy image) by Bud Light execs or revulsed by Dylan who’s-it. The alternate light beer choices are vast including bunches of “craft beer” makers entering the market during the Bud Light hay days.
“Retail competition is vicious...”
That is rule #1 that every retail product advertising department knows.....except for ENBEV AB......AND they more than likely could have even saved the brand after this monumental PR blunder but nooooo, They had to stick by their woke ideology.....well, they made their bed.....let ‘em lie in it.
A hard lesson they are now learning, and I suspect others are recalculating how they will proceed in the future.
Which is why WSJ’s ‘lost to competitors’ phrase is quite the Bowdlerized version - typical of this paper with an unearned reputation for balance or even conservative leanings. It’s not as if Miller Lite et al suddenly became more popular for no apparent reason.
It would be like saying ‘The US gained ownership of numerous Pacific islands in the 40s.’ A rather significant backstory omitted.
Many people still clamor for an apology but what good would that do now?
Moreover, the only apology or statement that would matter would be a categorical repudiation of ‘trans.’ Male cannot become female and vice versa.
That will never happen so they’ve made their choice already or had it made for them. Madness but then so is all of ESG.
My expectation is that Bud Light will eventually simply be rebranded without any change in the already horrid product. Eagle iconography is already part of AB’s marketing eg Budweiser. BL will become ‘Bud Eagle’ to tie in with the iconography. It will still suggest ‘light’ beer since eagles fly and float on the winds. And it will be a cynical exploitation of patriotism.
It will also be a shot across the bow - or beak - of Yuengling. Yuengling have been playing up the homegrown angle for some time and have a light beer called Flight.
Words never matter.
Actions do.
All senior executives should have been fired immediately.
Then the words can be spoken—if they are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
“The senior executive team we just fired hated and insulted our customers. That is why we fired them.”
It is really crappy beer, fizzy water with alcohol in it. As Bud Lite drinkers taste other beers they will not come back to Bud Lite.
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