Anheuser-Busch Chief Marketing Officer Resigns Amid Brand Decline

Bud Light, made by Anheuser-Busch, sits on a store shelf in Miami, Florida, on July 27, 2023. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Bud Light owner Anheuser-Busch has announced the departure of its U.S. chief marketing officer (CMO) months after its transgender controversy led to a fall in revenues.

CMO Benoit Garbe “will be resigning at the end of the year in order to embark on a new chapter in his career,” Anheuser-Busch said in a statement on Wednesday, according to CNN.

Mr. Garbe’s LinkedIn profile shows that he has worked with the company since November 2020. Until August 2021, he was the chief strategy officer for the New York City Metropolitan Area. In September that year, he was promoted to the post of CMO, tasked with accelerating the growth of “Anheuser-Busch brand portfolio, in premium and super premium beer segments and in beyond beer segments.”

Mr. Garbe’s exit comes as U.S. sales of Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light beer have tanked since hiring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a promotional campaign earlier this year. On April Fool’s day, Mr. Mulvaney, a man who identifies as a woman, showed off a Bud Light beer can depicting his image. This triggered a conservative backlash, including widespread boycott calls.

Anheuser-Busch saw its Q3 revenues decline by 13.5 percent. Sales to wholesalers and retailers dipped by over 15 percent, with the company blaming the fall in part to “the volume decline of Bud Light.”

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization fell by 29.3 percent in this period.

The company attributed two-thirds of this decline to “market share performance.” The remaining was owing to “productivity loss, increased sales and marketing investments, and support measures for our wholesaler partners.”

A few weeks ago, Lauren Denowitz, who was Anheuser-Busch’s studio chief, announced her departure from the company after seven years at the firm.

“With the Bud Light situation earlier this year, the company experienced its largest brand crisis in its several-hundred-year history,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“The impacts are being felt far and wide, and, understandably, as the company navigates its path back to sturdy ground, it’s prioritizing resourcing shorter-term impact initiatives vs longer-lead-time strategic bets like brand entertainment.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Anheuser-Busch for comment.

Falling Market Share

Since the controversy with Mr. Mulvaney in April, Anheuser-Busch has been trading in the red. Shares of the company decreased from around $66 in April to around $53 by the end of May. The stock has made a recovery to about $61 as of Nov. 16.

Between April and Nov. 15, the company’s market capitalization declined from $133.74 billion to $123.36 billion.

The Mulvaney issue forced Bud Light into second place in U.S. retail sales rankings, with Modelo Especial taking the top spot. Through Oct. 21, Modelo remained the market leader with an almost 9 percent share in year-to-year retail sales, with Bud Light closely behind with an 8 percent share, according to The Associated Press.

Sales of Bud Light’s rival brands Coors Light and Miller Lite have also been buoyed by the controversy. Coors Light and Miller Lite are brands owned by Molson Coors.

In October, Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley said, “We’re now more than six months into it [the controversy] and we feel very confident based on all the data we’ve seen that this is a permanent shift.”

Last year, sales of Bud Light were greater than the combined sales of Coors Light and Miller Lite. But by Q2 2023, the combined sales of Coors Light and Miller Lite became 50 percent more than Bud Light by total industry dollars.

In a bid to boost Bud Light sales, Anheuser-Busch announced financial support to wholesalers. On Oct. 18, the company said it would also provide other assistance like extended credit and fuel surcharge reimbursements while adding a market share recovery initiative for its wholesale partners.

“As we look ahead, we will build momentum by leaning on the unparalleled power of our brewer-wholesaler partnership and on the strength of our portfolio,” the company said.

LGBT Push

Despite the massive backlash from the Mulvaney controversy, executives at Anheuser-Busch continue to push ahead with a transgender agenda.

In an interview with The Guardian in September, Jeremy M. Helfgot, a spokesman for Phoenix Pride, revealed that Bud Light had supported its festival in October.

“We’re going to be putting on a full weekend of family-friendly drag entertainment, less than three miles from the Arizona capitol, where they’re trying to shut down that entire culture … It’s only because of the support of corporate partners like Bud Light that we can do that.”

In May, just weeks after the controversy, Bud Light announced that it would donate $200,000 to the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) in support of the organization’s “Communities of Color Initiative,” which aims to “support the growth and success of minority LGBTQ+ owned businesses.”

Anheuser-Busch also promoted three more LGBT festivals this year: the Bud Light Pride River Parade & Celebration in San Antonio, Texas; the Chicago Pride Fest; and the Pride St. Louis event.

In October, Bud Light became the official partner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) amid Anheuser-Busch’s attempt to reverse the damage suffered by the brand. However, the sponsorship agreement quickly attracted criticism.

“Lighting that money on fire would have been less embarrassing than what’s about to happen,” said former Republican congressional candidate Robby Starbuck. “Fighters are gonna hate this. Fans will hate it. The customers aren’t coming back.”

Anheuser-Busch’s other brands include Budweiser, Stella Artois, Busch, Michelob, Natural Light, and Hoegaarden.