Bud Light attempted to win over some of its lost consumers in a new ad campaign. Despite the use of an NFL star, the beer brand entered into one of the most important drinking weeks of the year facing significantly lower sales than last year.
Bud Light’s latest ad includes Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The commercial showed men opening the beer in an informal setting, including the Super Bowl champion.
The ad “Backyard Grunts with Travis Kelce” appeared to be an effort to win back male beer drinkers who may have dropped the brand since its announced marketing partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Despite the ad campaign, it appeared that the brand’s marketing efforts have fallen flat so far.
Former Anheuser-Busch president of sales Anson Frericks told Fox News this week that his former company was not “addressing the problem.”
He said that until the underlying issue was addressed, “I don’t see consumers coming back and coming back to this brand.”
Travis Kelce is on the Bud Light train https://t.co/m5S32NVGVV
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 4, 2023
“This chasm that we’re seeing between Bud Light and its consumers is only going to intensify because every time you come out with one of these weak statements or some of these just platitudes,” he said.
Frericks said that the beer giant could have solved the issue “three or four months ago by clearly coming out and saying: hey, Bud Light historically was always a brand that didn’t get involved in politics.”
The former Anheuser-Busch official said that the company should announce that it would “not necessarily get involved in a lot of different political issues or social issues.”
He also referenced the recent social media comments made by Mulvaney and echoed one major theme.
Frericks said that if the beer company would “come out and do a campaign with somebody, you have to support them. Otherwise, don’t do it at all.”
The former executive made the comment as a supplier that bottled the beverage laid off 600 employees at North Carolina and Louisiana locations.
Bud Light’s beer sales continue to struggle as the informal boycott enters its fourth month. Its sales were down 31% in mid-June.
