Go woke and go broke? Is Budweiser no longer the King of Beers?

Budweiser, self-proclaimed as the "king of beers" and an American icon, has diversified into other beers, acquired other brands, and grown into a global brand. However, despite spending 95% of my time coaching and training salespeople and sales managers, I couldn't help but take an interest in what could potentially be one of the biggest corporate marketing disasters of all time. I’d studied many marketing disasters before, after all, back in my University days.  

Here's a rough timeline:

• On April 1, 2023, Budweiser ran a campaign with a person named Dylan Mulvaney, who was celebrating 365 days of womanhood to complement their March Madness campaign on the TikTok influencers channel. 
• In their Bud Light TikTok, Dylan declared that they didn't know what March Madness is all about, but they were thrilled to see their face celebrated on the can of Bud Light. 
• This went viral, but is the saying “any publicity is good publicity” still true?

To give you context, Bud Light is often referred to as a "poor man's beer" and is popular among the lower socio-economic market in middle America and the southern states especially. That market tends to have traditional, conservative, family-first values. It is one of several beer brands owned by global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch.

This campaign struck me as risky, as sponsoring a self-declared woman for a brand clearly targeted at those states in America may go against their core target market’s values. When Jo Blowfield and I first ran our Marketing Boot Camp, to help small businesses write a 12-month marketing plan, we agreed that as soon as people had set their marketing goals, the first important subject for them to address was to understand their target market. After all, we're all in business to serve someone, and the better we serve those people, the better we succeed in business. So, when any brand deliberately associates itself with something or someone that may clash with the values of its target market, they're taking a high risk.

As Simon Sinek commented in The Golden Circle, people don't buy what you do or how you do it, but why you do it. Iconic brands like Apple and Nike understand this and leverage a huge amount of customer loyalty, even higher price points in some cases, by creating an emotional attachment to the brand. For brands like Bud Light, this loyalty has been built over many decades. 

Let's get back to the Bud Light saga. Following Dylan's TikTok Ambassador post, countless loyal Bud Light customers vented their frustration about the brand disconnect on TikTok and other social media platforms. One notable one that gained worldwide attention was former singer Kid Rock's response, using his semi-automatic rifle to destroy his collection of Bud Light. Many Bud Light drinkers showcased their backlash in swift, open, and passionate ways. This demonstrated their deep passion for the brand - a passion that most brands and businesses can only dream of.

Clearly, the Budweiser marketing team realized that something was going wrong when they went into social media silence for over two weeks following the TikTok campaign. They likely entered a war room to discuss which of the three paths ahead of them they wished to take on in the case of any customer dispute or brand crisis. In such situations, there are usually three paths a brand can take:

1. Double down on whatever has happened and repeat it only more forcefully.
2. Front up, apologize for the mistake, and try to make amends to regain customer loyalty as quickly as possible.
3. Do neither of the above: neither double down nor apologise 

As a business platform, LinkedIn is not the appropriate platform for commenting on the lifestyle choices of Dylan Mulvaney. However, it is a great platform to discuss the intentions of a brand's advertising campaign and, more importantly, the PR response of Budweiser Inc.

You see, it’s not the initial decision to partner with Dylan Mulvaney that caused the greatest stir, it’s what Budweiser Inc. did AFTER the initial campaign that is being judged the most. This is CRITICALLY important for every business and brand to understand: mistakes happen, but it’s what you do in response to that mistake that will be judged with the utmost scrutiny. For example: if your business makes a mistake with its deliveries, your clients usually understand. However, it’s how you act AFTER the mistake that people judge most. At the very least, your customers want to see empathy and respect being shown: they want to feel heard. 

Path three was chosen by the Bud Light marketing team, as they decided to go into radio silence and not apologize or take responsibility for their controversial marketing campaign. The VP of Marketing, in an interview shortly after the initial campaign, boasted about how Bud Light, a dying brand, needed a brand revival because it was considered too ‘fratty’ and out of touch. 

However, this self-confident interview was not only a direct attack on the target market of the beer itself, but it was also inaccurate. The term "fratty" refers to fraternity houses at tertiary education universities in the US, which are unlikely to be frequented by the vast majority of the core target market for Bud Light. This interview therefore further showed a complete misunderstanding of who those drinkers are, and the brand backlash intensified as a result. Many people didn’t feel heard. 

Furthermore, the social media silence and lack of acknowledgement from any senior director of Budweiser Inc. only fuelled the situation. Not fronting and not taking responsibility is possibly the worst strategy to take in marketing and in sales, as it leaves it to the market and customers to decide what happened and whether the company cares. I’ve seen this ‘avoidance’ approach being taken by a large telecommunications company in New Zealand when they had a significant power outage. Because no one from their company fronted the media, various business journalists ended up interviewing their competitor to understand the issue! 

In my opinion, the best approach for Budweiser Inc. at this stage would have been to acknowledge their core customer base for Bud Light, admit that they made a mistake with their edgy marketing campaign, and reverse it. They could then have run a promotion or competition for Bud Light customers to have their faces on the cans, or those of the military and first responders, along with discount coupons to attract them back to the brand. This would reengage the hearts of the customer base and show that they understand who their core customers are for this iconic American brand.

However, the response from Budweiser Inc. was very different. Sticking with response path number 3, the CEO did not apologize or take responsibility but instead released a cold, dry corporate press release stating that none of the directors or senior team was aware of the campaign, and they just wanted to get back to providing great beers to their customer base. They talked about how they as a former CIA worker had served their country for many years. This lack of emotional connection and ownership in the statement, as pointed out by Simon Sinek, was a problem. 

Budweiser Inc. then launched a corporate video campaign featuring their famous Clydesdale horse running through cities and countryside to remind Americans of the American dream and spirit associated with Budweiser. However, this advert and their response to the disastrous marketing campaign didn’t help. Their main customer base still didn’t feel heard. 

It led to a $6 billion reduction in market capitalization, almost 10% of the total company value. Imagine: that a nearly 150-year-old company can lose up to 10% of its total value, due to a doomed marketing campaign and, more importantly, its follow-up response to that campaign. 

The corporate video campaign felt to many like ‘putting lipstick on a pig’, as it appeared to be a superficial attempt to portray Budweiser as aligned with the traditional American spirit, but it felt disconnected from their recent actions. This lack of ownership, response, and respect for the customer base likely felt un-American to many, and the highly polished corporate video did not resonate with the audience. The advertising campaign further highlighted the disconnect between the corporate brand and its core customer base, as evident from anecdotal evidence and interviews, with sales of Bud Light and Budweiser plummeting in supermarkets, liquor stores, and bars.

A video shared by a Budweiser merchandiser revealed that he was unable to restock shelves due to a shortage of Bud Light being drunk, which would impact his ability to feed his family. Instead of blaming customers, the merchandiser blamed Budweiser themselves, despite their income coming indirectly through Anheuser-Busch. 

Next came another company response: Budweiser's marketing executives attempted to educate the market by highlighting that Budweiser Inc owns other beer brands besides Budweiser and Bud Light. They promoted this on social media and on their website, hoping to encourage customers to switch to other Budweiser Inc-owned brands. However, this campaign also seems to have backfired by essentially pointing out to customers which beers they should avoid if they don't want to support Budweiser Inc as a corporation.

I suspect it has now gone too far and too long for Budweizer to switch to response option number 2: to apologise and make amends. It will be very interesting to see what happens next. 

Although the market capitalization value has partially recovered from the $6 billion lost in a few weeks, the full extent of the fallout remains to be seen until sales data is revealed in a few months. It is likely that some heads may roll to appease shareholders at the next Annual General Meeting, where questions about the significant loss of company wealth may arise, despite the share price recovery. 

However, based on online discussions, it appears that Bud Light's core customer base perceives Budweiser's response as worse than the initial campaign, viewing it as an attack on their values, principles, and lifestyle. Calls to boycott all Budweiser brands are growing louder and more frequently. These loud calls to action appear to be fuelled by much more passion than initially thought, with many people calling for a stand against ‘woke corporations’ by making an example of Budweiser. Many commentators have called for a never-ending boycott of all Anheuser-Busch brands, which is very different to a short-term boycott of one specific brand. 

In recent years, we have witnessed large corporate businesses becoming increasingly involved in the political sphere and attempting to influence people's lives, lifestyles and choices. A recent example of this is the Disney Corporation, which has been accused of promoting a specific ideology and agenda. As a result, many people have unsubscribed from the Disney Plus streaming channel. The backlash against Budweiser Inc and the decline in Disney Plus subscriptions may be seen as a response to the perceived social ideology and global political campaign aimed at influencing society as a whole. This boycott may support the notion that "go woke and you’ll go broke" could become true. 

Finally, this brings to the fore the oft-quoted business saying of “the customer is always right”. While I don’t always agree with that statement, something I teach when helping teams set world-class customer service standards, there is an important lesson that all businesses can learn: EVERY business on the planet is there to serve their customers. The better they do that, the better they connect with their customers, and the better they will do in business. Without customers, no business can survive. I am fascinated to see this saga unfold. There are many lessons for us to learn.

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