Corporate Virtue Signals and Cold Beers

Corporate virtue signalling has become the new in-fashion trend for many global companies, and is often used buy companies that are looking for new ways to grow or prevent a decline.

The current example and today's poster child of this is Anheuser-Busch, the brewery that produces global brands such as Stella Artois, Michelob, Estrella, Budweiser and Bud Light.

Full disclosure here, I love a cold lager and while I personally think that the majority American beers are tasteless, I have respect the way the brands have managed to be become global names and even when in exotic locations they are available.

These brands can be considered similar to a Hahn, XXXX Gold or even a Great Northern in the sense that they have mostly catered to the tastes of men, and like VB, typically appeal more to the tradie types than inner city tech workers (who tend to prefer craft beers... maybe there is a link between office work and losing your taste buds?).

There is nothing wrong with a company or brand making the decision to appeal to a certain customer base and if it works it is a brilliant thing. Myself, after years of those old VB ads where blokes are doing hard yakka etc, after working on my car, doing some concreting or anything that causes a hard earned thirst and a hard earned thirst needs a big cold beer... and who all remember who makes the best cold beer.

It would make very little sense for a company that makes feminine hygiene products to advertise to me (I've bought them twice in my life and both times I sent a photo to make sure I purchased the right ones). But I digress slightly, the point I was try to make is that companies need to target their likely purchasers and not offend their existing market.

However, there is nothing wrong with trying to appeal to new markets.

Personally I believe that the biggest untapped market for the make up/beauty industry is Males (the proliferation of males looking after their appearance is a trend that I don't think will disappear in my life time) however if Loreal was to create ads saying their make up is now tailored for men it would likely go down like a lead balloon.

This brings me back to Bud Light and their new marketing campaign with transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney, a biological male who recently marked one full year in transition, so Bud Light celebrated the occasion by creating a can with Mulvaney’s face on it.

Vice President of marketing at Bud Light, Alissa Heinerscheid, has previously called the brand’s past marketing efforts as “out of touch” and “fratty.”

“I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light,'” Heinerscheid said.

So the decision to appeal to a younger audience (and one who is almost certain to not be significant Bud Light drinkers) makes sense on the surface.

However, the campaign has had almost the opposite effect as intended with sales reportedly tanking since the campaign launch and reports bars that routinely sell high volumes of Bud Light barely selling a bottle.

We have company that is trying to expand to new markets, which is almost the opposite of their traditional customer base. Take the ad below; football and beers. All you have to do is add a pizza or chicken wings and you have a night that sounds perfect for a vast number of the male and beer drinking population.

I don't want to make vast generalisations in this post or assumptions (we all know that to assume is to make an ass out of u and me) but based upon the reports of sales declines I think it is fair to assume that the majority of Bud Light drinkers are more conservative men and do not want their beer brands to make political statements.

This reminds me of the Gillette ad from 2019 that encouraged men to be better. I'll openly admit that ad offended me and I haven't used a Gillette razor or shaving cream since. Then again, I'm rarely clean shaven so my razor purchases are quite rare.

I did not disagree with the intention of the ad but it offended me that a company that makes money from ripping me off (razor blades are excessively expensive) put out an ad that implied that the vast majority of men were terrible human beings. I would have much preferred that they ran a campaign announcing they are paying a percentage of profits to woman's charities etc.

Once again I have digressed, apologies.

The corporate world and society at large is moving towards being a more inclusive and accepting world (this is a great thing) however as Bud Light has shown in the past week that when trying to navigate/promote these issues can have detrimental effects on sales for the corporate.

Companies play an enormous role in promoting change in our society, from the goods they sell, the products they purchase to their internal processes for dealing with people/societal issues. You might not know this but Westpac actually shocked the business community in 1995 by being the first listed company in Australia to offer maternity leave.

The result? Westpac retained more of their high quality women and soon it became the norm.

My suspicion is that we are going to see more and more companies taking stands or advertising based on these issues, some are going to be resounding successes, some are going to be massive failures but no doubt the most controversial of all will receive the most publicity.

What's that old saying "I don't care what you write about me, as long as you spell my name right?"

Cheers,

Tyso