AB InBev restructures marketing teams as U.S. consumers boycott Bud Light
By Joseph Ekeng
Following a recent boycott called against Bud Light beer by American far-right consumers, AB InBev has announced that it will change its global marketing team structures to check any major damage to its brand.
The global brewery giant announced that it has taken big lessons from the ongoing boycott of its Bud Light brand in the US by far-right activists,
The beer brand became the subject of anger from some socially conservative Americans in April, after influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a trans woman, posted a video of a can of Bud Light with her likeness on it, sent to her by the company as part of its ‘March Madness’ campaign.
The video went viral and prompted outrage from some U.S. consumers of the beer, which has often marketed itself around sports occasions.
According to its CEO, the company is now restructuring so its senior marketers across the business are “more closely connected to every aspect of [its] brands”.
CEO of AB InBev Michel Doukeris told investors the backlash had caused a decline in the sales of the beer in the US.
While it is still too early to tell the full impact of the boycott, in the first three weeks of April the decline in sales of the brand in the US would represent around 1% of the business’s overall global volumes for that period, he said.
“We will need to continue to clarify the fact that this was one can, one influencer, one post, and not a campaign, and repeat this message for some time,” the CEO said.
In an age of social media, brands, especially big consumer brands, can be easily brought into these debates, he said. While the company can “be at the table” when issues like this are being debated, “the beer itself should not be the focus of the debate”, he said.
He lauded the “strong plans” put in place by marketers across the business, and the results they had delivered in the first quarter.
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