Recently, Bud Light has resumed regularly posting on its social media accounts after pausing due to intense backlash from the disastrous marketing collaboration with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. However, these new posts have been met with an unchanged response from social media users who still slam the brand for its partnership with Mulvaney.
The posts often represent the feel-good times of summer, featuring friends and family enjoying Bud Light in seasonal settings. Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch indicated it would drastically increase its marketing budget, tripling its expenditure, over the summer months when beer demand peaks.
This is an obvious attempt to reposition the brand in the minds of consumers who have viciously boycotted the beer for over four months. The new ads appear to be an apparent reversal from the Dylan Mulvaney promotion. However, judging by the ratio of comments bashing Bud Light, consumers are still opting to boycott the beer. See Bud Light’s most recent post below.
Summer Sunday made easy pic.twitter.com/Q2o8q7RxMy
— Bud Light (@budlight) July 16, 2023
Blaze TV Host Chad Prather left a popular comment showing rows of unsold Bud Light in Cabo San Lucas, stating, “Yesterday in Cabo San Lucas. You can’t sell this sh*t.” It has been common for social media users to share photos of unsold Bud Light products in grocery stores and sporting events showing that consumers want nothing to do with the beer.
Another person commented, “At this point the only thing that can redeem you is selling to new ownership or board of directors that would publicly state how they aren’t going to be woke ESG company like InBev was previously being run. You did this to yourselves.”
The comments section was filled with many hilarious photoshops of the ad, one of which featured an edited image of the women taking the case of Bud Light to a dumpster. Many comments also informed Bud Light that they would never return to the beer, stating that the damage to the brand image is irreparable.
The uncropped version of the photo pic.twitter.com/80kqJpF23k
— NautPoso 🇮🇪☘️ (@NautPoso) July 16, 2023
Bud Light has made multiple other posts on its Twitter account featuring similar ads to regain lost customers. The response has been nearly identical in every post, where endless pages of comments feature users roasting the beer. This response to Bud Light has endured for over an entire financial quarter, and leadership at Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch were undoubtedly praying the controversy would have ended by now.
This summer is crucial if Bud Light seeks to win back the graces of beer drinkers around the country. Given the heightened demand during the season, consumer preferences will be exacerbated and have an increased effect on year-to-date financial performance.
Therefore, there is a huge opportunity cost for the boycott against Bud Light to continue at its current pace throughout the summer months. The American Tribune recently reported how Bud Light sales continue to tank over the 4th of July, which is a huge holiday for the beer industry. According to the data, the beer’s sales dropped 23.6 percent compared to last year.
This is a bad sign for the company, where Modelo Especial could overtake Bud Light as the best-selling beer in the country on an annualized basis if this trend continues. Modelo has already outsold Bud Light for two consecutive months.
"*" indicates required fields