It could be Bud Light’s last best shot at winning over beer drinkers and clawing back lost market share before it’s too late.
On Thursday, Anheuser-Busch pulled back the curtain on its summer marketing campaign that promises to be the biggest in the brand’s history, in a Hail Mary gamble complete with weekly cash giveaways and a new national music tour.
“We’re pulling out all the stops to bring the best summer moments directly to you, our fans,” wrote Bud Light’s new vice president, Todd Allen, in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.
A seasonal twist on its brand claim of “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy,” the campaign’s name has been dubbed “Easy to Summer” with a new ad spot set to the popular 1979 disco tune Good Times. It forms the third pillar of an overall strategy to recover from the fallout of its Dylan Mulvaney promotion disaster that threatens jobs, distribution partners, and the future of Bud Light.
“‘Easy to Summer’ will kick off with the brand’s largest media spend to date—starting with the new commercial airing today,” Anheuser-Busch said in a statement on Thursday.
Sales of the once ubiquitous lager have cratered ever since its decision to pay transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the brand at the start of April. Conservatives along with many mainstream consumers, fed up with what is often derided as the “woke agenda,” staged an impromptu boycott.
After the first-ever female vice president of marketing for Bud Light was promptly replaced and corporate headquarters disavowed the partnership, LGBTQ consumers then also stopped buying. GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said the community, along with its like-minded allies, refused to back a company that so cravenly caved to what she called “extremist bullies.”
With both camps straddling the trans rights divide, voting with their wallets against Anheuser-Busch, the lager blew its considerable lead over Modelo Especial and surrendered its title as America’s favorite beer to the Mexican rival.
Winning back beer drinkers
To win share back, Anheuser-Busch now plans to give away $10,000 every week to help Americans “stock up for all the backyard parties,” offer beer drinkers a chance to win $100 off their tab, and will give some fans the chance to join its first-ever Bud Light Backyard Tour, where they can experience acts like country music star Tyler Braden.
“Imagine intimate backyard sets across the country, where celebrated artists will jam out, spreading good vibes and creating unforgettable memories,” wrote Allen, a former VP for global marketing at Budweiser.
In May he officially replaced Alissa Heinerscheid after she was put on a leave of absence and reportedly told to lay low following her partnership with Mulvaney and her past criticism of Bud Light as a “fratty” brand in decline.
In a LinkedIn post, Allen wrote on Thursday that “leading Bud Light in the U.S. was always a dream of mine.”
He has his work cut out, however. Anson Frericks, a former head of Anheuser-Busch sales and distribution, warned Bud Light could very well sustain a permanent loss of market share if it didn’t act quickly to stanch the steady flow of customers leaving the brand.
The new “Easy to Summer” spot, which can be viewed on Bud Light’s official YouTube channel that boasts 200,000 subscribers, so far at least does not appear to have had the desired effect, either. As of press time, it continues to be ratioed by viewers with just 242 likes to 9,900 dislikes.
Shares in parent group AB InBev have tumbled 13% since March 31, the day before Mulvaney’s post went live, wiping out nearly $18 billion in market value, while the benchmark S&P 500 index rose 6.6% over the same period of time.
The multinational megabrewer is due to report second-quarter results on Aug. 3, when Brazilian-born CEO Michel Doukeris has the opportunity to update investors on the scale of the damage done to one of its most important brands.
