Bud Light sales plunge nearly 25% in latest week as rivals steal away customers

NY post ^ | 23 may 2023 | Lisa Fickenscher

[Cronos]

Sales of the US’s No. 1 beer were down 24.6% for the week ended May 13 compared to a year ago — slightly worse than the 23.6% dip they suffered a week earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting and Nielson IQ research.

Even more alarming, industry experts say, is the negative impact on Anheuser-Busch InBev’s other brands, including Budweiser, Michelob Ultra — with the latter being the nation’s No. 3 beer last year with more than $3.3 billion in sales last year.

Michelob Ultra sales were off 2.9% versus a year ago in the latest week, in line with a drop a week earlier, according to a Bump Williams analysis of Nielsen IQ data. Sales of Budweiser, last year’s No. 7 beer with more than $1.8 billion in sales, were down 9.7% in each of the two most recent weeks.

“Bud Light is ‘sick,’” Bump Williams, founder of the consultancy said of the US’s top-selling beer, which raked in $4.8 billion in sales last year. “It’s now infected other healthy brands with the InBev portfolio and that’s a bigger problem in my mind.”

Bud Light has lost $110 million in sales volume year-to-date compared to the same period last year. The number of Bud Light cases sold was down 28.4% in the week ended May 13 from a year ago compared to a 27.7% decline the previous week.

[Qiviut]

👍

[T.B. Yoits]

History would seem to indicate the boycott will eventually lose steam.

Boycotts do work but this isn't a boycott; it's a change in behavior. These beer drinkers aren't going back.

There's a list of beers that fell into decline and they never even paid a tranny to insult their customers:

Ballantine
Dixie
Falstaff (In the 1960s it was the third-largest beer brand in the U.S.)
Jax
Meister Brau
Olympia
Rheingold
Schaeffer
Schlitz
Stroh's

The beer industry has been in decline for decades and has relied on mergers to compensate for the decline.

Anheuser-Busch sold out to InBev in 2008 because they knew their brands couldn't compete without a merger. InBev itself was only formed in 2004, combining the Belgian group Interbrew and Brazilian brewer Ambev.

From 2008:

"The global beer industry has had a growing thirst for mergers in recent years as brewers struggle to cope with falling consumption in traditionally big markets in developed countries and soaring prices of raw materials. After successive waves of mergers in recent years, Britain-based SABMiller and Dutch group Heineken have emerged as the leading international brewers along with InBev and Anheuser-Busch."

https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/companies-executives/article/21948686/the-battle-is-over-inbev-buys-anheuserbusch

[Spok]

Buy one for your buddy in a sports bar, just make sure it’s not on tap. If you do it anonymously, it’s double funny!

[T.B. Yoits]

And what happens when people (well, mostly men) that Miller and Coors have their own issues with being woke?

Woke is one thing, having a transvestite with Gender Dysphoria and Autogynephilia who adopts the persona of a six-year-old girl champion the brand is another.

...and that's InBev's problem: they put a face to woke and people couldn't deny how mentally ill it is.

Miller and Coors can show flags and colors without showing the tranny behind the curtain.

[GaltAdonis]

"... people leave, try other commodity beers or actual beer,
they draw more people away, etc..."

.

But there are so FEW US craft beers to choose from...

So, so few beers... (and so little time!!!)

[monkeyshine]

It isn’t really a boycott in my opinion. Yes, for some. But I think it is more about people just being turned off. Some things are iconic and you don’t mess with them. These iconic goods become part of a person’s self-identity like the jeans you buy or the cigarettes you smoke and the beer you drink. People tend to be very loyal to things that are part of their identity. When the brand messes with that it changes the way people think about themselves. So the people adapt. I don’t think it’s as much to do about “trans hate” or an active “boycott” as it is that people lost their affinity for the brand and don’t identify with the brand as part of their lifestyle anymore. They don’t really care about Dylan Mulvaney - they care about themselves and Bud Light doesn’t fit with how they view themselves anymore. It was entirely a self-inflicted wound and I don’t think it’s going to recover anytime soon not because of anger but because they messed with how people view themselves as Bud Light drinkers.

It never was a good beer, if you can call it beer. But that’s a different story. But as you also pointed out - people may have noticed that, in trying something else to drink for whatever reason that there are better adult beverages out there, and won’t be returning to that swill because it’s tastes like carbonated mule piss in a can.

[AFreeBird]

AB/InBev owns a lot of craft beers.

[Recovering_Democrat]

not enough. make them pay more.

and Target too.

[BigFreakinToad]

A blog I frequent has a member that posted a picture from a flyer of a local grocery store. All the beer 12 packs were close to the same except for Bud Light, it was $1.25. Now that could have been a misprint, but maybe not.

[CFW]

A/B may as well give it up on Bud Light. It’s been seven weeks and there is no end in sight when it comes to the drop in sales. Every day there is a new article on a financial site reporting on their woes.

[Chickensoup]

75% are drinking

[Georgia Girl 2]

They can’t give it away. 😆

[joma89]

Let’s continue to destroy these woke companies. I stopped buying Goose Island since AB makes it and will never buy it again.

[Dr. Sivana]

History would seem to indicate the boycott will eventually lose steam.

Beer is different. Beer is personal. It isn't like what big box store you go to or what fast food burger you get.

Also, there is an endless number of choices and no shortage of eager competitors to fill the gap. If you want to boycott Target, for a lot of things there is just Walmart or waiting for an Amazon order. So, many women gave up over time.

Beverages have ALWAYS been the most cutthroat. Years ago, rumors were started that Snapple was run by the KKK, indicated by the K on the bottle (it was for "Kosher"), sales were hurt in the NYC area. Snapple is no longer where it was (mostly due to Quaker mismanagement, though)

Rush Limbaugh nationalzed the story of upstart discount beverage company "Tropical Fantasy", selling drinks for 49 cents through NYC bodegas. The big distributors started a rumor that it had chemicals in it that render black men sterile.

Now, you might realize that this is crazy talk, but if you are a black man, would you let your pals catch you drinking that stuff? Tropical Fantasy is no more.

Now, one beer that bounced back was Corona. Corona has clear glass bottles, unlike the Brown of Bud or the Green of Heineken. So, the beer is more obviously yellow. Competing distributors again started a rumor that the Mexicans pee in the vats. Ridiculous, but sales were affected at least temporarily.

Firestone was able to fix their problems by making better tires and sticking to their knitting. Bud's blunder affects the core identity of the brand, not the content of the bottle. That is MUCH harder to recover from.

[Alberta's Child]

Beer is much different than other products when it comes to boycotts. It’s harder to maintain a boycott against a car manufacturer or a clothing company … because consumers buy those products and keep them for a long time.

Beer is purchased for immediate consumption, and many of these brand names don’t have the kind of quality that will keep customers from trying other brands when controversy arises.

[GaltAdonis]

"AB/InBev owns a lot of craft beers."

Gotta weed those out, of course...

[T.B. Yoits]

People tend to be very loyal to things that are part of their identity. When the brand messes with that it changes the way people think about themselves. So the people adapt. I don’t think it’s as much to do about “trans hate” or an active “boycott” as it is that people lost their affinity for the brand and don’t identify with the brand as part of their lifestyle anymore.

...and just like that, it wasn't cool anymore...

Bell-bottom jeans
Tube tops
Platform shoes
Clog shoes
Polyester leisure suits
Folding sunglasses with a hinge in the middle
Mullet hair cuts
Piano-key neckties
Clothes with shoulder pads inside
Pastel clothes popularized by the television show "Miami Vice"
Sweatshirts "with the collars torn off like in that 'Flashdance' flick"
Hair poofed up with hairspray
Wine coolers
Grunge flannel shirts
Zima alcoholic drinks

...Budweiser and Bud Light

[Blue Highway]

And yet the two that were out on leave, STILL haven’t been fired. Boycott continues…

[cgbg]

Good points on this thread on why this boycott is different.

The other point is that beer is often consumed in social settings—so embarrassment kicks in as well.

Most folks don’t want to be seen drinking it in public.

[CFW]

And in other good news, Disney(DIS) stock dropped another $2.00 today, closing down at 89.82 per share. It’s 52-week low is $84.07, and hopefully it will continue to sink to that level and below as the company insists that the GIBLET lifestyle simply has to be included in every child’s movie produced.