Bud Light was recently dethroned from the long-held title of the number-one-selling beer in America. The brewing company has faced disastrous financial consequences since a marketing collaboration with Dylan Mulvaney in early April. However, a beer industry expert recently outlined what Bud Light will require to make a comeback.
Ethan Stienstra is a 30-year veteran in the alcoholic beverage industry who founded Ahead of The Curve Strategy and the E-Premise Group. He indicated that Bud Light would need to “poke fun” and acknowledge its inability to appeal to its former customers, who are now boycotting the beer entirely. “If I’m Bud Light, I’m going back to what worked and that’s the brand positioning and DNA. It’s funny, it’s witty, maybe a little sophomoric, but that’s their base, which they’ve alienated. They need to come back strong with something,” he stated.
Stienstra emphasized that admitting its failure in a playful, joking way would be the best approach for Bud Light. “I would poke fun at myself and say I’m wrong,” he said. “Everyone loves somebody that’s self-depreciating.” However, the industry expert noted that the brewing company is facing an uphill battle to reclaim lost ground and acknowledged how Bud Light lost its title as the number-one selling beer to Modelo Especial.
“It’s not looking pretty. They’ve lost their number one positioning,” Stienstra said. He further explained how this is a crucial time period for Bud Light to recover, given the increase in beer demand during the summer season. Beer companies gain a significant portion of their annual sales during summer, so if the boycott continues at its current pace, Bud Light may be in big trouble.
Stienstra pointed out the terrible timing of the Mulvaney backlash, taking place right before the peak demand of the summer season. “Summer weeks and weekends are the glory periods of beer. This could not have come at a worse time to be happening in April, and now we’re in June and it’s not letting up,” he said. Furthermore, the plummeting decline in Bud Light sales continues at a breakneck pace.
The American Tribune reported on Bud Light enduring its worst weekly sales decline since the boycott started. For the week ending June 10, Bud Light sales dropped almost 27 percent compared to last year. This was a significant increase from the prior week, which saw an annual sales decline of 24.4 percent. For several months now, Bud Light has endured annualized declines in sales consistently above 20 percent.
Furthermore, Bud Light recently released a new summer-themed advertisement aimed at winning back customers for the peak summer beer-drinking season. However, the Bud Light Twitter account which posted the ad was utterly humiliated by Twitter users in the comments section. Judging by the social media response, it will be a tough summer for Bud Light, but we’ll have to see if the sales continue to decline.
Stienstra claimed that Bud Light could become America’s favorite beer again, although he noted it takes brands “years and years” to rebuild and reinvent themselves.
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