Bud Light Finds Cause Marketing To Sports Fans A High Risk Gamble

Brands are facing increased pressure to take a public stance on societal issues. This has become a very high stakes gamble particularly when it comes to brands that use sports as the primary vehicle for reaching their customers who are generally sports fans that include a broad cross section of people. The prevailing thinking is that younger audiences demand the brands that they support embrace causes they value.

Another school of thought is that advertising and promoting controversial issues should be reserved for niche brands that want to engage a certain audience knowing full-well they may alienate those opposing their point of view. However, with brands that sell to the masses, particularly in sports, it gets more complicated and there is a view that most people want to use sports as an escape from political messaging. We’ve seen the NFL and NBA walk this fine line in recent past.

Anheuser-Busch (A-B) is historically sports’ biggest advertiser targeting sports fans everywhere. A-B has been rocked from the latest controversy surrounding Bud Light’s decision to put Dylan Mulvaney’s face on a Bud Light can. Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, posted the can April 1 on Instagram which touched off a strong public reaction and heated debate. The incident offended many Bud Light consumers and caused enormous backlash.

Sales volume for Bud Light tumbled by 21% in the week ended April 15, according to Bump Williams Consulting figures cited by Beer Marketer’s Insights and Bud Light’s loss in volume was absorbed almost entirely by rivals Coors Light (up 10.6%) and Miller Lite (up 11.5%) over the period. Coors Lite and Miller Lite’s dollar sales soared 17.6% for the week while Bud Light’s fell by 17%, Beer Marketer’s Insights reported.

These figures followed an 11% Bud Light volume decline for the week ended April 8, the first week following the protests to the trans influencer’s Instagram post showing her face on a can of Bud Light that was custom made for her by the brand. That is a decline of hundreds of millions of dollars of sales.

Bud Light VP of Marketing Alissa Heinerscheid, the executive in charge at the time, had called Bud Light’s previous marketing “fratty” and “out of touch” and suggested the brand should be more inclusive. It was reported that she took a voluntary leave of absence. However, A Wall Street Journal report indicated Heinerscheid’s leave was involuntary and was critical of Bud Light’s handling of the situation suggesting Bud Light should have backed her more.

The questions is whether Bud Light, which has been in decline for some time, can recover from this unanticipated massive set back? The short answer is yes and most experts agree that the harsh backlash will be short lived. Bud Light wasn’t using Mulvaney as an endorser and did not put the can on their own social media channels.

The bigger problem is that Bud Light’s sales in general have been trending downward, and while consumers will likely forget about this in the near future, it is clear they needed to refocus on the First Commandment of marketing: “know your consumer”. Once it gets past this crisis, A-B should consider a change in course to future proof its business.

Historically, Bud Light has marketed to America’s sports fans. Prior to the InBev acquisition, Tony Ponturo led A-B’s sports sponsorship and media team that dominated the sports sponsorship business, crafting powerful associations with nearly every sport, beginning with its NFL sponsorship that included Super Bowl advertising exclusivity. Ponturo and his team were executives that understood and loved the sports they sponsored.

The A-B of the past rooted their decisions based upon active conversations with real consumers at the point of consumption to understand better what they valued. They were out in the field mingling with their constituents: from athletes, to teams, to fans to their distributors. This type of intelligence is referred to as anthropological marketing, where you examine the customer journey as they are embedded in culture. The rule at A-B was that no one was to leave the bar while your boss was still there which led to a lot of late evenings. But at that bar were your core customers and there was lots to learn from talking to them.

When I was Commissioner of the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, Bud Light was our exclusive beer sponsor. Our meetings with A-B management would take place in their top performing bars, surrounded by distributors and consumers. We talked to beach volleyball fans (Bud Light customers) about what they valued most about Bud Light’s sponsorship of our Tour. The athletes were front and center to everything Bud Light did because that is what the consumer valued at the core of fan culture. Moreover, if you worked for Ponturo and were assigned to a sport, you were usually a fan yourself and became immersed in the culture of the sport you managed. And while people may refer to their style as “fratty”, one of Ponturo’s most powerful lieutenants was Kathy Casso, a gay woman. Everyone liked and respected her.

When InBev took over, it dismissed Ponturo and nearly all his team, and implemented a wholesale revamped approach to the marketing. Lots of fundamental changes were made to the culture of the company. It was driven primarily by data, cost-cutting and InBev put in place many executives who were trained in business school but had no strong connection to the sports they were serving. Don’t get me wrong, these were smart, well educated and engaging people. However, they seemed to rely far more on data and social media to make decisions rather than talking to their core customers.

A-B’s recent misstep is just symptomatic of the approach that exalts data above meaningful consumer feedback and empowers executives that are disconnected from the DNA of the core consumer. That leads to the fatal flaw of making marketing decisions based upon data alone or social media where special interest groups often enjoy an exponentially greater share of voice, drowning out the silent majority—who often are afraid of saying anything for fear of being part of the “cancel culture” movement.

There are certainly mainstream causes where we can find general consensus. No one can argue about a campaign to promote “equality” or the importance of “sustainability”, nor advertising about compassionate treatment of others no matter what race, gender or creed. These are core values universally accepted in our country that we all agree should be respected and encouraged. Dove’s “real beauty”, Ben & Jerry’s “voting rights” and Nike’s “women’s athlete empowerment” are just a few examples.

Then we turn to the issues of causes where we don’t all agree and are often the subject of fiery debate. This is where nuance is critical to a successful campaign and key to understanding how something will resonate with your core customer. One of those controversial causes is transgender rights, currently the subject of much discussion, whether it be the right to compete in athletics or whether the comedian Dave Chapelle should be “cancelled” as a result of the jokes he made about the transgender community that they found highly offensive. I would be hard pressed to believe the Bud Light sports fan consumer today wants to be thrust into an issue as controversial as transgender rights. They look at a beer as a familiar friend and companion as they cheer on their favorite team.

In order to truly recover A-B needs to get “back to the future”. Talk to your customers more and understand how cause marketing can be incorporated in a way that is purpose driven and aligns with the core values of your consumer in a more universally accepted way. And make sure your decision makers are truly part of the sports culture. This knowledge will inform the highly nuanced marketing decisions around when and how to embrace social causes in marketing particular when your target is the sports fan.