Anheuser-Busch CEO Blames Bud Light Boycott on ‘Misinformation’

The legal drinking age hasn't been changed to 25 starting August 2014. This Jan. 27, 2009 file photo shows bottles of Budweiser beer are at the Stag Brewery in London. Anheuser-Busch unveiled the ingredients of Budweiser and Bud Light for the first time Thursday, June 12, 2014, a day after a popular food blogger started an online petition to get major brewers to list what’s in their beverages. AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File

The chief executive of Anheuser-Busch blamed what he called “misinformation” for the backlash against Bud Light in a Monday interview following the company’s decision to make a can with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney’s face.

“People often talk about this topic in social media like noise,” chief executive Michel Doukeris told the Financial Times in the interview. “You have one fact and every person puts an opinion behind the fact. And then the opinions start to be replicated fast on each and every comment. By the time that 10 or 20 people put a comment out there, the reality is no longer what the fact is, but is more [about] what the comments were.”

Doukeris further stated that there was “misinformation and confusion” that circulated online that included a Bud Light can with Mulvaney’s likeness on it. Again distancing Bud Light from Mulvaney, he said that it was “never intended to make it for general production and sale for the public.”

Elaborating, the CEO said that people believed it was a campaign. “It was not: it was one post. It was not an advertisement,” he said.

However, in a video posted on TikTok in early April, Mulvaney could be seen drinking a Bud Light beer with the hashtag #budlightpartner, suggesting that there was a partnership between the two.

The CEO also said that there were viral videos of billboards with images of the Bud Light can allegedly inserted “electronically” and “10 million people [were] watching it and commenting ... that had nothing to do with Bud Light, it was just like pure social media creation.”

His comments come after reports show that sales of Bud Light have sharply declined in recent weeks amid the backlash, coming after conservative influencers and several country music singers suggested consumers not purchase the light beer over the Mulvaney post. Some industry analysts publicly questioned why Bud Light would make a can with the face of Mulvaney, saying the firm was making a major business mistake by wading into the hot-button debate about transgender individuals.

Sales of the product dropped 26 percent year-over-year in the week ending April 22, according to Bump Williams Consulting based on Nielsen IQ data. Meanwhile, sales of rival beers Coors Light and Miller Light both saw their sales rise by about 10 percent each, according to the data.

During an earnings call last week, Doukeris said that Anheuser-Busch would triple its investment into Bud Light over the summer, and the company would provide “direct financial support” to what he described as impacted front-line workers such as truck drivers and distributors. The slide in Bud Light sales, he added, represents about 1 percent of the brewing giant’s global volumes.

A six-pack of Bud Light sits on a shelf for sale at a convenience store in New York City on July 26, 2018. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“We believe we have the experience, the resources and the partners to manage this. And our four-year growth outlook is unchanged,” Doukeris said in the call. “We want to reiterate our support for our wholesaler partners and everyone who brings our great beers to the market. I can tell you that we have the agility, resources and people to support the U.S. team and move forward,” he added.

In the midst of the backlash, two Bud Light executives—Alissa Heinerscheid and Daniel Blake—took a leave of absence, the company said. “Given the circumstances, Alissa has decided to take a leave of absence which we support. Daniel has also decided to take a leave of absence,” the company said last month.

Notably, a video interview featuring Heinerscheid went viral in the wake of the Mulvaney controversy in which Heinerscheid said she wanted Bud Light to distance itself from the “fratty” image it has cultivated to become more “inclusive,” a term that is increasingly used by government agencies, colleges, and corporations that critics say signals an adherence a “woke” agenda.

Will the Boycott Work Long-Term?

Robert Lachky, the former chief creative officer at Anheuser-Busch, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a recent interview that the Bud Light cans was a significant marketing mistake. Corporate executives, he added, appear to be out of touch with the beer’s consumer base.

”The minute you step into the political or religious spectrum, when you know your target audience is going to have a real issue with this, you know you’ve alienated at least half of your target audience,” he said. ”In the end, people don’t like getting preached to, especially when it comes to drinking beer.” Lachky noted: ”None of these marketing folks has ever been to a NASCAR race, none has been to a football game or a rodeo.”

“That’s insanity. That’s marketing incompetence,” he concluded.

But some analysts say that boycotts often do not work in the long-term because it takes a lengthy coordinated effort to place tangible pressure on a company. Jura Liaukonyte, an economics professor at Cornell University, told NPR that left-wing boycotts of companies like Goya after its CEO backed former President Donald Trump, and Spotify—because it continued to host podcaster Joe Rogan—both failed.

“What we found is that the patterns were very similar,” Liaukonyte said. “They followed one news cycle, coming from zero to a maximum again to zero within two to three weeks.”

Doreen Shanahan, a professor of marketing at Pepperdine University, added to the public broadcaster that “eventually the media spotlight will dim, the buzz will fade and alongside it, consumer zeal for the boycott will wane as well.”