Anheuser-Busch continues to try to woo customers of Bud Light who joined in the boycott to come back. Bud Light has paid a big price for a bad marketing decision and now the brand’s owner wants it to be known that its market share is stabilizing. There is a plan to win back beer drinkers.
Ready? The plan to win back beer drinkers is to stay away from controversial topics. I kid you not. It’s amazing that the parent company, AB InBev, is just now making that announcement. Talk about slow learners.
AB InBev defends Bud Light as it points to a large survey it commissioned of American consumers during the second quarter. Sales, profit and market shares have all fallen sharply due to a consumer boycott. However, its survey shows that consumers still view the brand favorably but they just want the company to stick to selling beer. Shut up and sell beer.
“Beer is about relaxation,” Chief Executive Michel Doukeris said in an interview. “People do not want to enjoy their beer with a debate. They want beer to be simple, beer to be for everyone and beer to be enjoyable as they share it with family and friends.”
Doukeris said consumers want the company to focus its marketing on things that appeal widely, such as the National Football League, music and helping military families. “We continue to learn and we continue to move forward with the main activities we know that work everywhere,” he added.
In the wake of the Bud Light episode, AB InBev’s share of the total U.S. beer market has fallen by 5.2 percentage points to 36.9% in the second quarter, Doukeris said. Two-thirds of that loss is from Bud Light but other brands such as Budweiser have taken a hit from the consumer boycott, too.
The company’s market share has been stable since the last week of April through to the end of June, said Doukeris, while Bud Light’s share is following a similar trajectory.
The survey, which commissioned 170,000 consumers across the United States, found that most people are favorable toward Bud Light while 80% are favorable or neutral.
The company has accelerated production of new Bud Light ads that are heavy on themes of football and country music. The company told distributors that it would buy back unsold cases of beer that go past their expiration date.
Some consultants say that consumers who have left the brand have no desire to come back to it. They have been insulted and the company refuses to do the one thing that would make amends – apologize and admit it made a mistake. The company can grind out all the light-hearted feel-good ads that tug at our hearts all they want but it’s wasted money until an apology materializes.
In the meantime, the company is not abandoning its biggest brand.
Distributors for years had hoped to see a fresh Bud Light campaign that would better appeal to younger consumers, said Jenn Litz-Kirk, executive editor of Beer Business Daily. The summer campaign at the very least represents a commitment to the brand after the Mulvaney incident, she said.
“[Anheuser-Busch] couldn’t—and can’t—just abandon their biggest brand as it flounders, especially as distributors have been clamoring for them to ‘do something!’ as they continue to do,” Litz-Kirk said in an email.
The current ad campaign promoting Bud Light that began in late June portrays a sunnier image. It’s an extension of the “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy” theme Bud Light introduced during the Super Bowl. This month the company is staging the Bud Light Backyard Tour, a series of free concerts in Nashville, Oklahoma City, and other locations.
We’ll see how profits are looking after the third quarter and then at the end of the year. All the top officials have to do is apologize. Say they made a mistake and they’ll never take their customers for granted again. Act like they understand what they did wrong. This isn’t rocket science. It’s about treating the people who buy your products with respect. Otherwise, there are plenty of competitors who are happy to sell their beer to them.
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