HOW MUCH CAN LACK OF CONSISTENCY AND COMMITMENT COST?

We marketers always have trouble putting a number on this, but a good guess could be as high as?

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30%.?

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That’s the operating profit decline Anheuser – Busch saw so far in 2023 in the USA.?

How did this happen and why could it have been avoided??

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Well, the sales slump was primarily because of Bud Light no longer being the country’s most popular beer.?

It all started after the AB brand, Bud Light, hired Dylan Mulvaney.?

Mulvaney is a TikTok star who rose to fame documenting her gender transition.?

She was hired to create an advertisement on the platform and was beer with her face on it in April.?

Large consumer segments went into an “anti woke”? boycott of the beer, spearheaded by known conservative personas like Kid Rock.??

Well Kid?Rock did more than asking for a boycott, he actually?posted a video on TikTok of him shooting Bud Light cans with a rifle.?

In any case, there was huge controversy around the brand’s marketing.?

So huge in fact that AB went into full panic mode.??

They put 2 C-level marketing executives on mandatory leave (a euphemism for being fired), after they received criticism and even death threats.?

And they then continued with a PR statement from their CEO which cut all ties with the influencer and cancelled the whole campaign mixing in everything from “we didn’t want to be divisive” to “I served in the military.”?

So after all this some would argue that a 30% drop in operating profit is to be expected.?

What did the brand expect??

They were perceived as “divisive” from many in the (very widely defined) conservative public because of their endorsement of a very vocal and public member of the LGBT community, and they basically opened a can of Worms Light (sorry for that ??).?

So was the Bud Light fiasco, and a fiasco it was, down to just a poor ambassadorship choice??

That’s only half right.??

Because Mulvaney as a partner wasn’t just a random move.??

It was part of the brand’s plan to be “more inclusive” and less “fratty” as described by Alissa Heinescheid the then VP of Marketing and one of those 2 execs on “mandatory leave”.?

In her words it was a plan that:?

“means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that's truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men”.?

So it was a plan.?

A well thought out one.?

Probably.?

And a plan that could work.??

I mean it worked for other brands.??

Nike and the controversy surrounding Kaepernick's sponsorship was a comparable situation.?

You had a brand so mainstream that everyone one buys. Like (almost) everyone drinks beer, (almost) everyone wears sneakers.?

You also had a very public and “divisive” personality being used as an ambassador and members of the public who felt “divided” going on a boycott and even publicly burning Nikes.?

But instead of losing sales, Nike gained.?

And it gained a lot.??

Short term, Nike saw a 31% increase of online sales in the days following the Kaepernick ad.?

And mid term, just 4 months after the Kaepernick ad the company stock had soared, seeing a 5 percent increase.?

So what was the difference between Nike and Bud Light??

1?? Was it the consumer group??

I do not know. Both brands and categories are so big that they are consumed and are targeting everyone.??

2?? Was the move from “fratty” to inclusive too abrupt for Bud Light??

Maybe.??

Bud Light was the number one choice for a large group who felt very strongly and very negatively for LGBT issues.??

It was quite a shock to them to see “their” beer doing something so unlike “them”. On the other hand, creating a shock in marketing is not necessarily a bad thing. The Kaepernick ad was shocking as well. And it did fine.?

And this leads me to the third point.??

3?? Was it that Nike supported its choice of Kaepernick through the s$!tstorm while bud Light just cut all ties??

Even if it was a shock, the Bud Light ad was part of a plan. And a plan that had reasoning.?

Brands and beers need to stay current, in order to stay current, you need to attract new consumers, especially younger consumers who have a higher lifelong value for your brand. And younger consumers seem to care about inclusivity.??

But for a plan to succeed, it doesn’t just need to be written but supported.?

And maybe that’s where Bud Light went wrong.?

It chose a topic and as soon as it generated discussions, as hoped, and faced controversy, as expected, it didn’t stick with its choice.?

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It backpedaled.?

Frantically.?

And the whole thing backfired.?

Furiously.?

Could it have been avoided??

It’s easy to say so in hindsight.?

But the basic marketing principle remains.?

Consistency and commitment maximise the impact of creativity.?

Creativity without consistency and commitment is just a firework.?

It doesn’t happen often, but used in a rush it might just blow up in your face.?