Here's a tweet that's been making the rounds:
Talked to the @budlight beer salesman at the store today. He shared that he has never seen such non-movement of their products in his 15 years. Even in rural communities no product is being sold. The cooler was completely full of Bud products-not 1 case was sold since yesterday… pic.twitter.com/sNCjDIWmjQ
— TennesseeTruthSeeker (@TennesseeMAGA13) April 16, 2023
Anything is possible, I suppose, but according to actual data Bud Light sales are down -5.6% for the year compared to -10.7% during the first week of the boycott.¹ That's a net drop of five percentage points, which is considerably more believable than "not 1 case was sold since yesterday."
¹As their own VP of marketing said recently, Bud Light has "been in decline for a really long time." She added, "If we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light." This helps explain why Bud Light is doing things like partnering up with trans influencers.
Anyone who drinks light beer is a PAB.
Don't the young'uns these days want sun-dried tomato beers and strawberry-pumpkin beers and other abominations? It's a symptom of their moral degeneracy.
As the old joke, light beer is like making love in a canoe.
Abominations indeed! Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalt’s!
Pabst Blue Ribbon FTW. 😉
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In other words, anything that violatres the reinheitsgebot.
The youngs are all drinking Whiteclaw, which is why Bud now has a hard seltzer brand of it's own.
But what about all of the other Anheuser-Busch brands and beers?
Did those Tennessee redneck hillbillies switch to a different Anheuser-Busch brand just to spite the folks at Budweiser? 🤪
Two words: Hard seltzer.
Yeah people who don’t like beer now have a better option, if you’re going for flavorless alcoholic water just get actual flavorless alcoholic water, no need to pretend it’s beer 😂
Ugh, most of that tastes like too little flavoring on metallic flavored carbonated water with cheap everclear poured on top.
I think 5% is pretty impressive myself.
It is and then again maybe it isn’t. Evidently Bud Light is sinking beneath the waves so the question is the relationship of 5% in the context of the brand’s overall death spiral. It’s possible that a decline of 5% actually represents a short-term increase in sales.
With the year over year decline increased 5% correlated with the boycott, I think that describes the context acceptably for a retired curmudgeon's blog post.
Regardless, a reminder that anectdote is not data, perfectly plausible a single store has a boycotting client base, but it's data not single store.
Not even for target practice?
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"If we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light."
One does not say things like this in public. One simply puts the obsolescent brand to bed and spins up another.
Haven't drunk a light beer since the 1990s. They're watery and not that pleasant. I honestly don't get the point of them. Either drink real beer of some sort or drink something other than beer.
I like the dark stuff. English had it right when it came to beer
When you get older it makes sense. You get used to the flavor. Did you honestly like beer the first time you tried it? If you like Lagers they are fine. Miller lite
I love a good lager. Bud/Miller/Coors do not produce good lagers. My critique of craft brewing is not merely the love of over-hopping them for the same of over-hopping them, but also the prevalence of ales. And frankly, a lot of craft lagers are not good. It is harder than it looks. But there are a few out there, particularly if we expand this to include bocks. A decent liquor store will typically have one or two that interest me.
"Anything is possible..."
No, anything is not possible. There are many impossible things whose probability is zero, and many things whose probabities are so close to zero that they are not worth considering.
Pretending otherwise does not make one "open-minded" but fanciful and unscientific. More often, the phrase is used as a sort of disclaimer that allows deniability when one is too lazy to look up facts about something speculative. For example, "there could be a zebra without stripes, after all, anything is possible..." Could there be? Look it up instead of just allowing for the possibility. In fact, some zebras are born without stripes and zebra stripes have been becoming more irregular. It is better to find out, or not say it at all.
Is it possible that Hillary Clinton killed Vince Foster? Anything is possible. Is it possible that the moon landing was faked? Anything is possible. Is it possible that Trump is right about winning in 2020? Anything is possible. See what happens when you stop asking "Is it likely" and focus on possibility instead. This is how Republican get their followers to believe crazy things.
Was this weird screed generated by a GPT?
GPT, like reality, has a liberal bias.
Maybe. Anything's possible.
Finally, we've found something the whole country can agree on: Bud Light is awful.
Two points
1. Trans rights are controversial in the US. Generally, national brands (Mcdonald's, Coke etc) try to stay publicly neutral on these type topics: why divide your customer base? There are exceptions (for example Nike) that have developed a different type of brand. I contend, Budweiser made an unforced error by stepping into the trans right topic.
2. I lack data but speculate that the loses in sales are not equally distributed. Likely in places such as Seattle, Portland and San Francisco sales volumes are minimally impacted. In contrast, I would not be surprised if Bud distributors in Little Rock and Mobile really are experiencing an economic impact.
"Trans rights are controversial in the US. Generally, national brands (Mcdonald's, Coke etc) try to stay publicly neutral on these type topics."
Not true. Maybe you want to visit the McDonald's "Livin' My Truth" page to learn about the company's celebration of Queerties and the Out100, or the Coca-Cola "Pride Collection," featuring merch celebrating all things LGBTQ+. You know what the T stands for, right?
Support for LGBTQ+ has not at all been controversial and corporate sponsorship for the cause has been a regular part of brand marketing for years. Pfizer, Unilever, IBM, Siemens, HBO, and many others fly the rainbow flag. Companies commonly donate to LGBTQ+ groups. Their internal policies support the LGBTQ+ members of their workforce.
It is not just a Nike thing.
The right has made a big stink about trans issues, but to believe there is something "controversial" about support for trans rights is really just anti-trans bigotry.
Joseph Harbin - if you examine the national polling, support for gay (LGBTQ+) rights is much stronger then acceptance of the subset of Trans people. Seems like the GOP have come to terms with/seemingly have acceptance of gay rights but still oppose supporting the Trans community.
Pew:
That seems pretty broad acceptance and support for transgender people. Only in your mind is trans rights too "controversial" for corporations to support trans rights. Which they do. (And don't give b.s. that corp support is for the L, G, B, Q, + but not the T.)
Of course, there's a segment of the GOP electorate that can't exist without a group they're allowed to hate, and trans people are now their flavor of the month, but the appropriate response to them from everyone else, including decent middle-of-the-road folk, is: Go fuck yourself! (Not: oh, it's "controversial.")
People buy Bud Lite in Seattle, Portland and San Francisco???
Really???
I think it's considered a hate crime in Seattle.
i'd like to see some data on how many people even know about this boycott or the controversy at all. i only know about it from kevin's posts. i suppose it's probably a big topic on fox news and various rightwing news, but i'd still be surprised if that drove a 5% drop in sales.
"From a public relations (PR) standpoint, M&M’s response (to the Tucker Carlson kerfuffle about the brand) was very professional to save face and protect themselves from further scrutiny. However, their 2023 Super Bowl commercial seems to have confused the public even further. In the commercial, Maya Rudolph satirically introduced a new, clam-flavored M&M’s. Towards the end of the commercial, the red M&M’s spokescandy made a subtle appearance in the crowd holding up a sign that read, “HELP!”." https://rusentinel.com/3113/a-e/what-happened-to-mm-review-of-recent-controversy-and-qa-with-rockhurst-pr-professor-dr-acey-lampe-provides-insight/
CLAM FLAVORED.
I think Budweiser can respond in similar fashion. There's nothing to lose here. Conservatives can't mount a sizeable enough boycott. M&Ms remain popular; so does Disney.
Speaking of Disney, the company doesn't seem too worried about boycotts.
I, personally, am grateful to the team at Budweiser for making conservatives and D-list musical artists froth and flail for a couple of weeks.
Hilarious.
Where do I go to burn my Beatles albums?
Miller Lite is a variation of Chicago's Meister Brau, see:
https://www.seriouseats.com/beer-history-chicago-diversey-siebel-meister-brau-miller-lite-goose-island
From May to November 2016, Anheuser Busch renamed Budweiser “America.” How did that impact sales? And yes, the Seattle bar I worked in quit carrying it for the duration.
Damn, I'm impressed. A boycott causing a drop of 5% of sales seems more effective than I expected. But kinda makes you wonder about the change in sales for the parent company. Or for Gay Pride sponsoring beer making companies overall...