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The Brand Management at Anheuser-Busch (AB-Inbev) have got to be some of the dimmest bulbs on planet Earth. They have been lost in the desert for three weeks. They are lost in the marketing desert, and when a member of the team drops out, they grab onto one another and keep walking in circles. Then, they hire Swamp Creature Consultants from Washington, D.C. to help them find a way out for the Bud Light brand. Yeah, that’s gonna work. Those Gucci loafer types know how to remove yourself from a marketing desert: hire more Dylan Mulvaney types to put on woman face. Would you be surprised?
The Bud Light brand management team has been trying to coherently explain their strategy ever since they “partnered” with female cosplayer Dylan Mulvaney for March Madness.
When the backlash hit Bud Light, the Anheuser-Busch President, Brendan Whitworth, put out a weak tea statement. It wasn’t an apology:
“We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Brendan Whitworth said in press release titled “Our Responsibility To America.”
“We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
Weak tea, indeed. Then comes word that not only has Alissa Heinerscheid (the clear mission girl) and her boss, Daniel Blake, have both taken leaves of absence. Good luck with that. Leave of absence equals time to get your resume ready because you are out of the door. Buhbye.
Red State puts the blame on ESG or the Environmental, Social, Governance score so beloved by Black Rock and Vanguard:
Again, someone on this Bud Light team isn’t thinking clearly. The problem isn’t going to be solved by talking to some D.C. consultant. Listen to what the American people who are your customers are saying: it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Bring in some of your former customer base and let them talk to you for a bit. Understand what it is they’re saying to you.
Former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks explained it in simple terms on “Fox and Friends,” saying they can’t count on Americans forgetting about this. He said they needed to go back to being apolitical and say, “We’re not going to get involved in the environmental social governance movement because that’s not what the customer wants.” Frericks said the company is going to have to decide “who it’s going to be accountable to.”
Sorry, but they cannot listen to their customer base. They don’t have the skills. Not the Brand people, the President, or Swamp Creature Consulting. Harvard Grads are not known for their listening skills. They are comfortable with ESG. Their idea of inclusivity or expanding the brand is Dylan Mulvaney. Sponsoring a Black or Latino biological female, Beach Volleyball player would never occur to them. That’s how you expand the brand. Who is drinking Bud Light and what are the intersections close to them? You may not like “Frat Boys”, but they throw parties, drink beer and have friends. Expand your thinking and don’t insult your customer base.
Giovanni Gallucci knows the food and beverage business and has it mostly right:
I nearly choked on my coffee this morning when I saw this ridiculous statement in a news article:
"Bud Light has also hired two consultants with experience in Washington, D.C.'s conservative circles to advise the brand moving forward."
Are they kidding me? This ranks up there… pic.twitter.com/2giCd9YwFq
— giovanni gallucci (@gastroverite) April 23, 2023
And Bud Light did have clever advertising. If they wanted to use men in women face, they could have gone back to this old Bud Light advertisement:
Funny and not offensive. Well everyone is offended by something nowadays.
I think the problem is deeper than all of this. You have to love your brand. Before the hostile takeover in 2008, the management team came up from the bottom at Anheuser-Busch. Like sweeping the factory floors bottom. Learning to brew beer. Probably driving a delivery truck as a route driver too. There is something to be said for that. You meet the customers, the product buyers, the bartenders, the shop owners. You learn to respect your brand and the people who sell and consume it. You develop … relationships. Then, you see beyond the current consumer base to the other possibilities.
August Busch IV, the last family CEO, may not have been my cup of tea, but he knew his brand. Brendan Whitworth, the current InBev CEO, graduated from Harvard and then was in the Marines and the CIA. He spent some time at Pepsi too. Bet he cannot brew beer. Fancy Swamp Creature Consultants cannot brew beer either. Get back to basics. Learn to love your brand and consumers.
If you love your brand and consumers, you won’t even think of insulting them.
Featured Image: fossilmike/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons
“…experience in Washington, D.C.’s conservative circles…”
Not just D.C. – but “conservative circles.” They have the belief that it MUST be conservatives driving the backlash. (For what definition of “conservative” could also be a question. The Kinzinger / Cheney / French types? Far more prevalent in D.C. that what I call conservatives.)
Guys, and many girls, just want to sit down with a few beers, watch the game (whatever it is), munch down on unhealthy stuff, and yell at the TV when something stupid happens.
Not be dealing with a prancing princess. I know people that are quite a bit to the left of me – and they would eject a 100% female that is acting that way. I suspect that a female-to-male trans would probably do the same; after all, that is the kind of stereotyped “female” idiocy that they completely rejected.
NTSOG says: A couple of decades ago I came to believe that any person who has studied for a Masters In Business Administration should never be allowed to ‘manage’ any organisation that was founded to provide a specific service to a specific population as such ‘managers’, generally lacking real life experience, generally only ‘manage’ to support their own status and career aspirations and impress those with political power.
Wfjag says: I earned a MBA from a Tier 1 university. It taught me what not to do. In a Management class, listening to the Professor extol his favorite theorist I asked “How many businesses has he run?” After some silence and a dagger stare, the Professor’s answer was “Do you really want to be here?” I learned to start reading about the habits of successful leaders and just repeat the Echo Chamber answers in class (and ended up on Dean’s List). The MBA was the credential which opened doors that gave me the chance to apply lessons learned in self studies of successful leaders.
EricR says: There are two types of MBAs. Those who managed businesses first and got an MBA for the knowledge and those who got an MBA with no real business experience and got and MBA to open doors.
Nobody says: Fantastic analysis of the Bud Light teams lack of basic understanding of their business model. No I don’t have a MBA, just a guy who started out sweeping floors and paid attention!
Mike Murphy says: Beer is proof that God loves us.
Budweiser does not.
cheeflo says: And wants us to be happy.
cheeflo says: I thought Vanguard stepped away from ESG investing.
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