Bud Light lit its brand on fire.
The company has not been able to recover.
And a Bud Light executive ripped Bill Gates for one giant mistake.
Bud Light was once the most popular beer in America.
But after the company entered into an endorsement deal with controversial social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney, the brand plummeted.
Bud Light’s sales dropped by an eye-popping 30%, which tanked the value of parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Out of nowhere, Microsoft founder Bill Gates purchased 1.7 million shares of AB InBev for nearly $100 million.
And former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks said the move by Gates was foolish.
Cavuto teed up former Bud Light boss
Frericks told Neil Cavuto, “So if I was looking for advice on investing in software companies, tech companies, I might go to Bill Gates…But if you’re looking at the beer industry, he doesn’t have a great track record of investing in winners at this point.”
Gates has already invested $900 million in Bud Light competitor Heineken.
Frericks continued, “For the company’s sake, they’d probably be better off [with] maybe somebody who is more of, kind of the everyman type of person, maybe like a Rob Gronkowski or somebody like that was investing into Anheuser-Busch, not necessarily somebody like Bill Gates…There’s one camp that says that Anheuser-Busch, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders and to take a look at just providing great products and services for their shareholders…That’s the camp that I am in.”
The hit to Bud Light seems to be permanent
Despite all sorts of efforts to repair the brand, the company’s drop in sales remains constant.
Bud Light clearly did not have a durable competitive advantage; it was easy for consumers to take their business elsewhere without a moment’s thought.
Multimillionaire investor Kevin O’Leary explained, “Bud Light has become the poster boy for brand mismanagement…[This issue] highlights the power of social media. This issue went viral in 48 hours and most often when an issue goes viral like that, it burns out in another 48 hours, but that’s not what happened here. The story and narrative changed to sales and so people that did not like the message, regardless of where you stand on these social issues or gender narrative or whatever, they took it out by basically boycotting the product immediately and switching preference to other brands that did not make them get involved in this issue.”
Gates is one of the richest men on the planet, so maybe he has plans for Bud Light that every finance guru cannot see.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
