Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney

[Leafstamp]

Loads of news outlets reporting this story :

Bud Light boycott over trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney hits beer giant's sales - BBC News

BBC being its usual self and calling him 'Ms' 🙄

But good that companies might start learning the financial cost of promoting this insulting nonsense.

So why did you imply it was a chart of Bud Light sales?

🙄😴

I didn’t mean to imply that. I posted a general comment saying the boycott has had no real impact on the company. A poster disagreed saying sales had dropped therefore it was a huge impact on the company.

So I posted the chart showing the boycott was no impact on the company in the context of the larger downtrend.

The other poster conflated a drop in retail sales (not all sales) of Bud Light with whether the boycott impacted the company in any discernible way, and I simply stuck to my original point.

So your figures suggest trend decrease in sales of 4% per annum over 2008-2020. You're claiming that is the same as a 25% decrease in sales in the period since the DM promotion?

Your assertion that it is the share price of Anheuser Busch that “really matters” makes no sense whatsoever. The only thing that matters are the sales of the relevant brand.

Bud Light has always represented less than 10% of the parent company’s sales but the fact that Bud Light is owned by one of the world’s biggest brewing companies is immaterial to the fact that the brand of Bud Light is now all but destroyed.

And also the latest results disclosed that sales to wholesalers (stadiums, bars etc) fell by 1% more than the drop in retail sales (direct to consumers). It’s all clearly set out in the latest results statement.

It does make sense in the context of the OP as she stated:
But good that companies might start learning the financial cost of promoting this insulting nonsense.

OP is asserting that the boycott has been a financial cost to AB. Unfortunately, it’s not really that much of one. It’s had no discernible impact on AB as a whole after all, they do own over 100 beer brands.

The drop in sales of one brand isn’t the only thing that matters to a company as big as AB.

The fact that the brand of Bud Light has had its final death throes from a decline that started 15yrs ago slightly accelerated by a minority boycott is material to discerning whether AB is suffering any penalty from “promoting this insulting nonsense” or not.

Sorry but if you are suggesting that any company can afford to throw away a brand which is worth 10% of sales you are financially illiterate. The parent company’s share price reflects a multitude of factors and I am baffled as to why you think it is somehow what “really matters” rather than the actual brand sales which is a direct measure of the response of consumers, unfettered by the rest of the conglomerate.

Also baffled by this view given that AB’s market cap (number of shares on issue x share price) actually fell by $27 BILLION between the day before the DM tie up and the end of May. So ok if you are insistent on measuring the damage to the brand value of Bud Light purely in terms of its stock market value then $27 billion is what you end up with.

No.

OP is asserting that the boycott has been a financial cost to AB. Unfortunately, it’s not really that much of one. It’s had no discernible impact on AB as a whole after all, they do own over 100 beer brands.

The estimated cost of the recent slump is about 0.4 billion dollars plus undetermined amounts in increased advertising cost.

You assert that the company won't register that because they are so large- then why sack the people responsible and end the campaign?

You don't seem to understand that that is a lot of money, even if the parent company is large. Companies only remain large by noticing when they piss money away and doing something about it.

I’m not suggesting that. The brand sales figures are only a small part of the puzzle, not “the only thing that matters” in the context of financial cost with everything else being “immaterial” and “makes no sense” as you asserted.

On the $27Bn drop in AB share value from day before to the end of May, if you’re suggesting that share value in a dynamic stock market goes up or down only or even mostly in response to a boycott by a minority of people in one country against one brand of over 100 that a conglomerate owns, then you have a novice understanding of business.

I’m asserting it’s really no skin off their nose. All that has happened is that one of their brands that was already dying- Bud Light, has now been replaced by another of their brands Modelo Especial that has been on the upswing.

It doesn’t matter that they lost Bud Light sales in the US as those customers by and large bought one of their other brands.

Globally, the company performed relatively well in the quarter, with a revenue increase overall of 7.2% and half-year growth of 10%

Market share has been decreasing anyway as consumers have been gradually going away from mass produced beer to craft beer since the start of the 21st century. So increased revenue and profit is more due to price increases and markets outside the US offsetting the decline in volume of beer sold.

“Anheuser Busch Inbev NV (AB InBev) is a Belgium-based company engaged in the brewers industry. The Company owns a portfolio of over 400 beer brands. The Company's brand portfolio includes global brands, such as Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois; international brands, including Beck's, Leffe and Hoegaarden, and local champions, such as Bud Light, Skol, Brahma, Antarctica, Quilmes, Victoria, Modelo Especial, Michelob Ultra, Harbin, Sedrin, Klinskoye, Sibirskaya Korona, Chernigivske, Cass and Jupiler, among others.”

Strange! Someone using your account said "Bud Light sales dropped from 42.4 million barrels in 2008 to 25.7 million barrels by 2020…..so the 2023 slump is nothing new." Maybe you've been hacked.

You don’t seem to understand that it’s so small it disappears into the normal fluctuation of stock value for AB- which hasn’t recovered from the pandemic.
That’s why the CEO has come out with his “no regrets” message. The daily ups and downs of the stock market can wipe off more than $400m to a company that size.

Ummm the loss in share value was $27 billion. It is frankly absurd to suggest that this is within normal fluctuations, hence the global headlines.

Sorry but this is utterly pointless and I’m not wasting any more time.

I did say that, but I didn’t suggest or say the below:
”So your figures suggest trend decrease in sales of 4% per annum over 2008-2020. You're claiming that is the same as a 25% decrease in sales in the period since the DM promotion?”

You’ve tried to directly compare two data points of sales by volume with last quarter’s drop in sales by revenue- something which I did not suggest nor would I suggest anyone do.

Do you have a source for that figure please? All the stuff I saw at the time said $6bn I think.

Apologies, please ignore that! My phone isn't loading all the posts on the page.

Look at the chart of share price. It’s up to date as of 15 minutes ago.
Tell me, where is the huge massive financial cost caused by this little provincial boycott?! There isn’t one.

I agree it’s utterly pointless discussing anything with anyone who can’t even look at a line chart and admit there is nothing to see. The global headlines are spin. Have you never heard of spin? Do you never go look at the evidence behind the headlines?

No. I'm not comparing them. You are, in claiming the 25% drop is merely the continuation of the long-term trend. You can't have it both ways.

I didn’t directly compare the drop in sales by volume to a drop in sales by revenue like you did by doing silly line drawing and thinking they are “the same.”

I used the drop in sales by volume as an illustrative example of how Bud Light beer sales have been on a steady downturn for a dozen years reducing market share as consumers have increasingly gone to buying craft beer.

Increased prices have offset some of the decrease in sales by volume. But they are a plaster over the serious problem of mass produced beer losing market share.

I don’t know what you mean by “can’t have it both ways” ? It’s blatantly obvious that a drop in sales by volume cannot be directly compared to a drop in sales by revenue. They’re two completely different calculations.

Yep, the share price is even up 7.4% compared to this time last year!

You assert that the company won't register that because they are so large- then why sack the people responsible and end the campaign?

Because they’re incompetent, best to sack the incompetent before they do damage.