By Katarina Arambasic-Pivic
Photo: Pexels/Gonzalo Arizpe
Bud Light case study, updated on June 30th, 2023
Many different things businesses undertook to get the public’s attention. While many of them were well received by the audience, others hurt their position in the market, profits, and good reputation. However, the fundamental rule of marketing is understanding your audience when creating a campaign, especially one that attempts to shock the public. Do you believe Benetton’s campaigns from the 1980s and 1990s, which are widely remembered today, would have been as effective if the company hadn’t identified its target audience and goals? And why Benetton isn’t what it once was, but more later.
On this occasion, we will deal with the beer brand Budweiser and the case that shocked the American public. In brief, at the beginning of April, Bud Light launched a new campaign whose promo face is transgender person Dylan Mulvaney. Anyone who hasn’t followed this case will wonder what the catch is because Dylan is not the first trans person to promote a brand. However, Bud is a beer primarily consumed by “white conservative boomers” who disliked this campaign. Within just a few days of the start of the campaign, Bud lost billions of dollars in market capitalization. The company was flooded with negative messages on social media from its consumers calling for a boycott of this beer.
It is still unknown what the campaign’s creators hoped to achieve, whether the goal was to get away from the boomers (of whom, sorry, there are fewer and fewer) and generation X and positioning among the younger generations, millennials, and gen Z, which is generally less inclined towards “beer culture”. It’s only clear that Bud lost a lot among his audience, affecting the profit big time, and only the future will show what this campaign will bring them in the long run.
I only hope there is a purpose behind everything and that it is not the biggest marketing mistake – that someone wanted to shock at any cost or be progressive among consumers who tend to have different views and showed elementary ignorance or disrespect for their audience. Remember that this brand, which has existed since the end of the 19th century, built its greatness precisely on highlighting the American state, respect for American traditional values, and American pride. You can see what Bloomberg thinks about the company’s cowardice and hypocrisy on this occasion https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYco7yNd/
According to the information that is currently accessible, the head of marketing for Bud Light is now “on leave” and the vice president of global marketing for all of Budweiser has been appointed in her position. In this instance, the company released a generic statement saying that these “adjustments” in marketing “will help the company keep its focus on what it does best: making great beer for all consumers while always having a positive impact on the local community and the country.” Although generic, this announcement still speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Whether this is about damage control or something else, time will tell.
Update (June 2023) – When the Bud Light case filled the newspaper columns and social media, some marketing experts claimed that the company had planned all this and would soon monetize the campaign. It is unclear why they thought this because it could not be concluded based on the company’s wrong moves. In any event, the first results were the following: sales of this beer fell by about a third already in that quarter while the negative emotion of loyal consumers has not died down (the business results at the end of the year will for sure tell us more).
Brendan Whitworth, CEO of the Anheuser-Busch company under which Bud operates, made his first public appearance on Fox TV in late June. However, since, on this occasion, he did not specifically answer a single question but spoke in the style of a trained politician with the intention of not saying anything, consumers still stay away from this beer. The company is called a “sinking ship”, and recently the resignation of the head of the AB company was also demanded.
