Anheuser-Busch executives looking for what went wrong as their beer goes down the drain need go no farther than the nearest mirror, according to a former brewery giant executive.
“Effectively, it took us 20 years to take Bud Light beer to the No. 1 beer in the country, and it took them one week to dismantle it,” Robert Lachky, a former chief creative officer at Anheuser-Busch said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Lachky who was booted when InBev bought the company in 2009 after having created award-winning ad campaigns, said the damage from the company’s dalliance with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney was “self-inflicted.”
The company needs new leadership, because currently Anheuser-Busch doesn’t have a clue about who the American people are.
— Y AV (@yav205869) May 11, 2023
“It’s a complete lack of corporate oversight, and it’s been that way since (InBev) took the company over,” he said.
He said the lords of marketing don’t understand the people who drink Anheuser-Busch’s beer, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
”None of these marketing folks has ever been to a NASCAR race, none has been to a football game or a rodeo,” he said. “That’s insanity. That’s marketing incompetence.”
Former employees can always be accused of sour grapes, but a new report from CBS said that the boycott launched April 1 has now led Wall Street analysts to also go sour on the company with sales for the year down 11 percent compared to last year, with losses since the boycott began exceeding that.
BUD LIGHT UPDATE: Bud Light sales continue to crash as Anheuser-Busch stock was just downgraded.
Rocky Mountain states have seen the largest sales collapse, down 29%.
New England: Down 14%
West Coast: Down 18%
NY, PA, NJ: Down 19%
East South Central: Down 22%
Midwest: Down ~24%… pic.twitter.com/FOuSp9noVJ— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 11, 2023
A report by Beer Business Daily on its subscribers-only website that was cited by Barron’s said that after the first three weeks of the boycott, sales were only down 8 percent, meaning the boycott is causing more damage the longer it endures.
“The way this Bud Light crisis came about a month ago, management’s response to it and the loss of unprecedented volume and brand relevance raises many questions,” analysts at HSBC wrote as they downgraded the parent company’s stock to “hold,” according to CBS.
The analysts wrote that “the trend of declining beer volumes is worsening and may be down more than 25% in April,” adding that “US distributor relations appear to be at an all-time low.”
“It is unclear how ABI will reverse eroding U.S. volume and brand relevance, and fix distributors’ trust, without leadership changes,” the analysts said.
The Bud Light boycott is the most effective boycott conservatives have ever wielded against Woke America.
Sales down 26% compared to a year ago, Executives are being put on leave, and stores are marking Anheuser-Busch products down.
We should not let up until they actually…
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 2, 2023
Carlos Laboy, managing director at HSBC’s global beverage sector said there are “deeper problems than ABI admits,” according to CNBC.
“Is ABI’s leadership getting the brand culture transformation right? It’s mixed,” Laboy wrote in a note released Wednesday.
“Why did its US leadership underestimate the risk of pushback given the recent experience of other firms? Is A-B hiring the best people to grow the brands and gauge risk?” he added.
“If Budweiser and Bud Light are iconic American ideas that have long brought consumers together, why did these marketers fail to invite new consumers without alienating the core base of the firm’s largest brand?” Laboy stated.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.