06 June 2023

Bud Light Kerfuffle - Month Three

Schadenfreude is a dish best served with a cup of coffee. Bud Light is running out of time and could lose market share FOREVER: Brand will lose retail shelf space to Miller and Coors if they cannot reverse plunging sales, warns ex Anheuser-Busch exec

If Bud Light sales continue to lag, the brand risks losing shelf space at major retailers to competitors and 'locking in' lower market share, a former Anheuser-Busch executive has claimed.

Video and photos of unsold Anheuser-Busch products are everywhere around the internet, probably mostly on social media, but even so. The problem is that retail shelf space is a constrained resource, especially in small stores like convenience stores or your neighborhood liquor store. They can't afford to warehouse product on shelves that is not moving. Not when there are other products that customers want. That means that AB will at first lose space to its direct competitors, like Miller, or Coors, but it may eventually also lose space to craft beers, which have been gaining in popularity for a very long time.

If Bud Light sales continue to slump, 'that shelf space will be allocated to Miller Lite, Coors Light, Yuengling, and some of the other brands that have that have taken share from them,' [Anson Frericks, a former Anheuser-Bush executive,] said.

If that happens, if Anheuser-Busch losses hold around the 30% mark, that would be bad enough. My guess is that it will be worse than 30%, at least in some markets. (So where exactly are the 70 percent of people still buying Bud Light?) And that 30% number is from the week ended May 20th. I cannot find definitive numbers for anything more recent, which makes me think the numbers were SO bad, the media is trying to bury them. Can't do anything to upset the narrative, after all.

There is a good video making the rounds. It is a 14 minute interview with Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank on Fox News in which he says that "Bud Light has become the 'poster boy' from brand mismanagement.' I recommend the fist half at least, though I did find the entire thing interesting.

1 comment:

  1. Many of the Bud Light drinkers have found another beer they like and will never go back. AB screwed the pooch when they failed to address this head on, gave a non-apology and blamed everyone else for the error.

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