Sorry for being AWOL the last couple of mornings. Family responsibilities kept me busy.
When the experimental Titan submersible went missing a few weeks ago, the whole world felt the tension as rescuers launched a seemingly impossible effort to locate and raise the sub before its air supply ran out. As we all know now, it was a recovery effort from the start, not a rescue, because the Titan experienced an implosion and lay in pieces on the ocean floor.
An implosion is when the external pressure on a container becomes too great and it collapses in on itself. I like the way this article states it: “a phenomenon experienced by an object when the external pressure becomes so high that it manages to overcome the resistance of the vessel’s body.”
The Titan saga, tragic as it is, reminds me of what is happening to Bud Light right now.
Bud Light is no longer one of America’s 10 most popular beers following months of a boycott over its partnership with a transgender influencer, according to a YouGov survey.
The survey, which measures popular opinion on beers, found that Bud Light fell from the list of Americans’ top 10 favorite beers. The poll, which surveyed Americans during the second quarter of 2023, found the percentage of people who “like” the beer hasn’t changed and still sits at 42 percent, but the percentage of those who like rival drinks soared. Guinness, Corona, and Heineken ranked as the three most-liked beers in 2023. They clocked approval ratings of 58 percent, 53 percent, and 51 percent, respectively.
Bud Light has also lost its position as America’s top-selling beer. In addition, parent company Anheuser-Busch’s market cap has fallen by $20 billion.
As if that weren’t enough, the company can’t even give it away. Besides that, Costco, the warehouse discount retailer, has marked Bud Light with its dreaded “Death Star” — an asterisk on their pricing signs.
It’s the logo that Costco shoppers dread: when the “Death Star” appears next to their favorite item, indicating that the discount retail giant won’t restock once current inventory has sold out. Just this year, the Death Star has appeared on Filthy brand blue cheese olives, Kinder’s organic toasted onion dip mix, and Jonny Pops chocolate dipped strawberry pops.
Now the Death Star has been spotted adorning the price signs for Bud Light, which was the most popular beer in America back in the olden days of […checks notes…] a couple months ago.
This, my friends, is an implosion, “when the external pressure becomes so high that it manages to overcome the resistance of the vessel’s body.” Tranheuser-Busch has resisted apologizing to their customer base and has tried to thread the needle between angry conservatives (i.e. Normals) and angry Marxist-infused trans-anarchists. It’s not working, and the pressure that conservatives have brought to bear on the company is not only threatening their flagship beer, but other brands that AB owns.
As Bud Light continues to face plummeting sales amid a conservative boycott over its collaboration with a transgender influencer, other brands made by parent company Anheuser-Busch are also taking a hit.
Sales of Michelob Ultra fell by 4.3 percent in the week that ended July 1 compared with last year, and Busch Light was down 8.5 percent, the New York Post reported. Both brands are, like Bud Light, owned by the Anheuser-Busch brewing company.
“Budweiser trends have been slipping for a very long time, but it’s the Michelob Ultra negative numbers and now Busch Light negative trends that are most alarming to me,” Bump Williams, whose consulting firm ran the numbers from NielsenIQ data, told the Post. “They were very healthy prior to April 1.”
Conservatives, generally speaking, don’t want to mete out a beat down; they’d like to resolve their conflicts peaceably. But we’re beginning to wake up to the fact that the LGBTQXYZ+ tyrants aren’t interested in resolving anything “peaceably” — unless it is total submission to their ideology. They don’t want just tolerance; they want complete affirmation and obedience to their diktats.
This is the first time that I can remember a boycott this effective. I no longer buy Gillette, I don’t shop at Target, I’ve dropped Fox News (I still peruse their online site) and I don’t watch the NFL, NBA, MLB or any other political organization masquerading as a sport. Some of them, like Target and the NBA, have lost a lot of brand value, but continue to operate with pretty much the same framework.
Bud Light, however, is in a free fall. They offended their customer base so severely that prior customers have abandoned them completely.
Of course I’m pleased by this because as I’ve written before (here and here), it’s not enough to just temporarily boycott offending brands. You have to abandon them. And that’s what this feels like: conservatives are finally demonstrating that they’ve had enough of corporate wokeness and their pressure on Bud Light in the form of abandonment has caused an implosion of the brand.
An apology at this point won’t be enough to bring their customers back. Bud Light is dead to the American Right. It may survive as a brand of beer, but it won’t thrive. Tranheuser-Busch ignored the warning signs, the blinking lights, the concerns about its new “strategy” to refresh the “fratty, kind of out-of-touch” consumers and charged ahead anyway.
It brought the implosion on itself and has only itself to blame.
Have a good weekend.