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Is Laughter the Way To Revive Bud Light?
In what the Wall Street Journal describes as the brand’s “biggest bid to recover from a consumer boycott last year,” Bud Light is launching a Super Bowl ad promising a “humorous spot introducing a new character to the Bud Light universe and some familiar faces from the platforms the brand has been passionate about for years.”
A teaser video — showing 12 seconds of the one-minute ad — dangles a celebrity cameo, with a bearded football fan in awe of a mysterious sunglass-wearing figure, asking: “Are you?”
Bud Light’s iconic Super Bowl ads gained notoriety for their levity and occasional brashness, including those featuring the controversial “original party animal” Spuds MacKenzie. In a switch designed to broaden the target market beyond young males, Bud Light’s 2023 Super Bowl commercial employed a softer approach, depicting husband-and-wife actors Miles and Keleigh Teller dancing to telephone hold music as it rolled out a new slogan: “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy.”
The execution received generally positive ratings, but two months later, a widescale boycott ensued after a partnership with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney outraged the brand’s conservative fanbase.
A podcast clip from Bud Light’s former marketing chief, Alissa Heinerscheid, labeling past Bud Light campaigns as having “fratty, sort of out of touch humor,” elevated the uproar. Liberal-leaning drinkers similarly boycotted the brand since it didn’t stand by its transgender partnership.
The brouhaha caused Bud Light to lose its spot as America’s top-selling beer at retail to Modelo.
CEO Brendan Whitworth said in April last year that the company “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.” However, sales have continued to slide.
In the first two weeks of 2024, Modelo accounted for 8.6% of U.S. retail-store beer sales compared with Bud Light’s 7.4%, according to consulting firm Bump Williams. Bud Light sales were down 28.9% year-over-over, while Modelo’s grew 15.1%.
In response to the backlash, Bud Light initially ran a more traditional and patriotic TV ad calling out American values that many saw as disingenuous. Thereafter, the brand started rolling out a number of lighthearted commercials capitalizing on its NFL sponsorship — including one featuring current star, Travis Kelce, and a recent one featuring legends Peyton Manning and Emmitt Smith — hammering home its “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy” tagline.
Bryan Roth, editor of the alcohol beverage newsletter Sightlines+, believes consumers will be turned off by Bud Light’s “incredibly generic” identity given its strong past reputation for supporting inclusivity. Roth told CNN, “Today’s consumers feel connected to brands because they represent ideas and values, not because a beer company makes a general hand wave that drinking its product will be ‘easy to enjoy.’”
At least with the Super Bowl ad, Bud Light seems intent on continuing to emphasize its drinkability message while again reaching for the funny bone. Kyle Norrington, Anheuser-Busch’s chief commercial officer, told the WSJ, “You’re going to see what…our brand lovers expect, which is some really funny advertising.”
Discussion Questions
Can a return to humor in the Super Bowl help Bud Light recover its standing with beer drinkers?
What lessons should be learned from Bud Light’s continued struggles?
Poll
Loading …BrainTrust
David Spear
VP, Professional Services, Retail, NCR
David Naumann
Marketing Strategy Lead - Retail, Travel & Distribution, Verizon
I am not sure this will cut it, not so soon after the marketing and PR disaster. Regardless of the ethical and social merits of the controversial Bud Light campaign, it completely ignored the target audience and core customer. That was a huge mistake from which it will take a long time to recover. Humorous ads at the Super Bowl will likely be met with cynicism and scorn by those the company alienated. But, Bud Light is right to try and move on; it will just take time for the broken bridges to be mended.
With plenty of other bottled waters on the shelf…. Bud Light, as well as Budweiser itself, have issues beyond self-inflicted identity problems: like other segments of the alcoholic beverage industry, beer has been infiltrated – if that’s the right word – by premium brands, as well as being adversely affected by increased abstention. Together it’s made it tough going for the traditional market leaders; Bud Light may well reclaim the crown – or not – but regardless it will have continuing challenges that are nothing to laugh about.
A very important first step to recovery is being missed by the Bud Light brand. Bud Light will not be able to attract consumers back until they acknowledge, joke about, and acknowledge their public relations blunder. Any other strategy will not work without that.
The “frat boys” base of customers will not budge until some acknowledgement is given to them no matter how many athletes or new characters appear on their ads. Everything else will be too little, too late.
The real problem is that the young marketing team still doesn’t “get it” that their brand isn’t Woke, and never will be. If Woke consumers cared, they would have rallied around the brand after the mishap. However, the marketing team seems to believe that distractions will solve this problem. It won’t. Not yet.
It is imperative that the brand go out of its way, at least for a while, to embrace the mistake, and demonstrate approval and pride with their true market. The elephant in the room must be dealt with directly by this brand. They can do it with humor, no problem.
Once they have done that, they can capitalize on athletes, new characters, the Clydesdales, and more. But I will be shocked if this very stubborn marketing department is smart enough or brave enough to do the right thing, in the right order. Come on Bud Light, surprise me! – Db
Returning to its brand essence of sports, humor and playfulness will help Bud Light rekindle its relationship with beer drinkers. It will start to move beyond past controversies by recommitting to serving its core audience.
Branding is all about consistency. From my experience working with Molson, Labatt and other beer accounts, I know consumers expect a distinct brand personality and reward consistency.
In the late ‘90s, Molson Canadian’s creative direction took a baffling U-turn. Only when the brand returned to its positioning as the most patriotic beer (“I am Canadian”) did it regain its vibrance, enthusiastic word-of-mouth and sales.
The funny ads get noticed. I know the ads will be everything but generic. On occasion, they have emotional ads as well. Regardless, most (if not all) are memorable. But does that sell beer? Bud Light is a recognized brand that needs to be front-of-mind for beer drinkers. They aren’t looking to sell beer to people who don’t know the brand or don’t drink beer, although they may pick up some new customers. They are looking to get old customers back and new customers (who already drink beer and know the brand) to start enjoying Bud Light.
The damage to Bud Light’s brand is, in my view, irreparable. The beer is just not very good, and an ill advised association with Dylan Mulvaney was all that it took to wake (woke? JK) people up to the fact that Bud Light is not good. There are too many other beers in the market that taste like something for Bud Light to be revived, and no amount of humor will fix that problem.
The proverbial genie is out of the bottle, and with the market being flooded with local breweries the large breweries with scale and advertising dollars will find themselves competing for a smaller slice of the market.
You know, at the end of the day, lite beer is lite beer. If you were adamant enough to boycott the brand (that’s a whole other post….so many angry people), you’re not going to believe they’ve really changed anything. Nothing but complete capitulation (which ain’t gonna happen) will do.
The big lesson learned from Bud Light’s marketing blunder is to maintain your focus on your loyal brand enthusiasts with marketing that resonates with their values. Budweiser has dug a big hole with their fan base and humor won’t solve the problem. Many of the customers that boycotted Bud and switched brands may find that the new choice isn’t much different than Bud’s options and it will be difficult to lure them back. This was a very expensive marketing blunder.
So a funny commercial is deemed the antidote to lagging sales? This is another example of leadership missing the point. No amount of humor is going to return Bud Light to growth given its complete abandonment of its loyal brand drinking audience.
The CEO never apologized. Being part of a ginormous company that is strong in other parts of the world, he may not feel he has to. That this is just a blip on an investor call. But if Bud were free of InBev, they would never have allowed that. They could read the tea leaves. It is a tragedy for the independent distributors who are left alone to try to reverse course after losing 30% market share.
I have no empathy for the disgraced former marketing chief. She moved past inclusivity to cutting edge. You don’t do that to a mass-market brand, just like the wrong-headed decision by buyers at Target carrying trans swimwear in Pride displays. Both were easy to focus on far-right provocateurs looking for missteps.
The current CEO Michel Doukeris should apologize to both the left and right for their tone-deafness. It’s not a laughing matter.
They say laughter is the best medicine, and laughter is a proven marketing tool especially for a mainstream brand like Bud Light. This won’t fix the underlying problems with the category, but it might help Bud Light shed some of last year’s controversy.
Sometimes it boils down to product. Undifferentiated product. And what the customer discovers about alternatives when the sheer momentum of their habit-driven purchases is interrupted. Customers discovered new choices when their autopilot behavior was interrupted. And the most clever marketing in the world won’t bring them back. Some will, but between other lite beers, craft beers and non-alcoholic beers people have made new choices. It’s a big market with lots of choices. Momentum is powerful when it’s on your side. And maybe even more powerful when it’s working against you.
Gap rose to fame on very straightforward product and brilliant marketing. The marketing faded and the undifferentiated product fell victim to a broad market offering. Gap never did figure out how to differentiate their product and have been on the skids ever since. Differentiation and distinction has to be in the product itself (communicated by marketing), not just an illusion created by marketing.
Bud Light had to do something to get back on tv, and not just watch their sales slide. They’ve lost their core customer base and this new spot feels awful generic. It appears they were being generic to erase recent memories, which buys time, but ultimately doesn’t connect in an emotional way.
They’re going to have to keep spending money on brand over time to build back trust and create a core group of customers, whether old or a new.
While it is true that Bud Light has produced some very funny & in some cases, memorable ads in the past, I’m not convinced that will work in this case. Regardless of your political persuasion or inherent biases, brands need to respect their target market(s), taking care not to offend or turn off these dedicated brand users. Funny won’t work here. Bud Light needs to take on a more direct & conciliatory approach to win back these disenchanted customers. Humor that doesn’t address their errors & remorse won’t turn on the Bud Light tap.