Businessman and “Shark Tank” host Kevin O’Leary, also known as “Mr. Wonderful,” said in a recently released video clip from Fox News’ “Rundown” that Bud Light “has become the poster boy for brand mismanagement” after it sparked a nation-wide boycott by starting a marketing partnership with transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney.
Posting the clip on Twitter, O’Leary captioned it by saying, “Bud Light has become the poster boy for brand mismanagement. The narrative that has risen around Bud Light is a good lesson. It highlights the power of social media. People that didn’t like the message, took it out by boycotting the product immediately.”
As you can hear in the clip, O’Leary, describing what happened to Bud Light, what enabled the boycott to begin so quickly and have such staying power, why the situation is a “nightmare from hell” for the company, and why Bud Light is now the “poster boy” for brand mismanagement, said:
“Well, Bud Light has become the poster boy for brand mismanagement from multiple perspectives. So let me lay it out for you. Because these discussions that have arisen, and the narrative that’s arisen around Bud Light, is probably a good lesson for every CEO in every sector of the economy.
“Number one, it highlights the power of social media. This, this issue went viral in 48 hours. Yeah. And most often when an issue goes viral like that, it burns out in another 48 hours. But that’s not what happened. Hear the story and narrative change to sales.
“And so people that did not like the message, regardless of where you stand on these social issues, or gender narrative or whatever, they took it out by basically boycotting the product immediately. Yeah, it’s switching preference to other brands that did not make them get involved in this issue.
“Now, if you’re trying to manage that, and trying to learn something from it, and I certainly talked to all my CEOs about this, because here we are talking about it in its second month. Yeah. This is a nightmare from hell for the brand.
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“You have to ask yourself in crisis management, what do you do? Because if you go to the other side, and try and balance the gender narrative, you’re going to get a whole new onslaught of people that don’t like that.
“So when you go into gender narrative on a beer, which is primarily consumed by men, maybe you should have thought a little bit about that in reading that room. Maybe you should say, Well, does this really fit my consumers psyche and narrative.”
The stock market would apparently agree with O’Leary, or at least agree with the narrative he’s putting forward about he situation being disastrously bad for the brand, as Bud Light’s parent company has shed billions in market value since the crisis began and the situation appears to be one from which it won’t recover any time soon.
Watch him here:
Bud Light has become the poster boy for brand mismanagement. The narrative that has risen around Bud Light is a good lesson. It highlights the power of social media. People that didn't like the message, took it out by boycotting the product immediately. pic.twitter.com/Hf9xh6stDr
— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) May 23, 2023
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video