Musings: Will Bud Light Sales Drop?
The bull case for Bud Light is that, like Coke and Pepsi, people have their strong taste preferences and can tell the subtle difference between Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light.
Additionally, things get blown out of proportion online, so every week the Left or Right is trying another boycott that generally has a 3-4 day half-life.
But there’s something different about this because this is 180 degrees opposed to Bud Light’s brand, there are low switching costs, and the news has a high viral coefficient.
Bud Light has generally been marketed as the “American drink for average Americans.” Bud Light commercials look like truck commercials. It’s hard to imagine a more discordant vibe for Bud Light than Dylan Mulvaney, who (transgenderism aside) gives off very strong District 1 Hunger Games/East Coast Elite vibes.
Low switching costs - there is a very competitive light beer market and every booze shop in the country has all three major brands sitting side by side. If there’s a 1% chance of getting made fun of for bringing a case of Bud Light to a party, I think a lot of people will grab Miller or Coors.
High virality - usually boycotts are discussed vehemently online and zero in real life, leading to a low viral coefficient. In this case, though, I can picture that people who are looking for corny jokes will make them at the expense of their friends drinking Bud Light. Every time someone makes a joke like this, it will spread the news of the sponsorship and make everyone in the vicinity of the joke less likely to buy Bud Light in the future and more likely to make similar jokes.
My conviction on this is very low, because I’ve never seen a successful boycott by moderates and the right, but for the reasons above I think it might be interesting to watch.
Further evidence that this will not be as big a deal as I am anticipating, the Anheuser-Busch CEO responded to this controversy by doubling down with the below statement rather than apologizing. Maybe this means he can see that Bud Light sales have not been negatively affected by this controversy?