When Bud Light brought us "hold music" for the Superbowl, their new strategy was announced with fanfare, that it's the easy-going and easy-drinking beer - easy for everyone. “We are ushering in a new era for this brand,’ said Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, in an interview. She promised then to “strip away all the loudness and the distractions.”
This is not a bad strategy to take when other brands have owned the low-carb area for decades, and their biggest competition is less "easy" drinking heavier IPAs. Their follow-up ad "Carry" showed a woman at a bar managing to bring an armful of beers to her friends without spilling a drop, while shaming a tray-guy on the way.
Then Bud Light shat in the blue cabinet as they managed to offend everyone with a poorly thought-out Dylan Mulvany sponsorship that caused such an uproar and sale decline that Alissa Heinerscheid was put on leave.
It's in light of all that we see this new summer ad.
On the surface, it's just a funny series of vignettes of all things summer. Hot asphalt and bare feet, difficulty opening kegs, sunburns, hammock struggles, and windy picnics. But people are reading into all of this, seeing clumsy men, doofus dads, and incompetent idiots - taking it to mean "the people who still drink Bud Light are utter morons." To them, Bud Light is now easy to boycott, rather than easy to drink.
Client: Anheuser-Busch InBev
Ad agency: Anomaly
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It's almost the height of American summer, 4th of July around the corner, and not a single American flag in sight in that ad. We see you, Bud Light. And we're not going to buy it.
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PermalinkI had to share this with someone as soon as I read it. Bud Light now selling for less than water in some US warehouses following Dylan Mulvaney fiasco
Once the most popular beer in the US, Bud Light is now selling for less than water in some American warehouses.
Andy Wagner, the manager and 18-year veteran of Glenn Miller’s Beer & Soda Warehouse in Lemoyne, Pennsylvania told the New York Times that a 30-pack of Miller Lite was selling for $24.99, while a 30-pack of Bud Light was priced at $8.99 after a rebate.
“At this point, it’s cheaper than some of the cases of water we’re selling in the back,” Wagner said. “It’s just not moving like it used to.”
“It’s not that they stopped drinking beer,” he added. “They just stopped buying Bud Light.” He said Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch broke the “bar rules,” meaning “no politics, no religion.”
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