Final Project: Bud Light, Essays (high school) of Communication

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• GEB 321306/23/

Sr. Communication Advisor In April 2023 to appeal to a wider audience in this case a potentially younger more socially conscious generation we sent out personalized cans for a transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney (Liakonyte, 2024). Due to declining sales in our typical demographics, we have been attempting to reach different audiences to hopefully prevent a further decline in sales. This deal with Dylan spread like wildfire, unfortunately so did the outrage and mis information. Social media took off with individuals like Kid Rock and Travis Tritt calling for boycotts, on top of this posts of how the beers were in production to be sold which was not the case. Following this a statement from our CEO Brendan Whitworth was issued summarized to “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. “We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer”. Also, he stated that we work with hundreds of other influencers across the globe (Caruso, 2023). After this an attempt at a very patriotic commercial was aired. Still the boycott continued and arguments over our brand engulfed social media. In March our VP of marketing went on a podcast and stated that our brand was in decline and that we needed to update our “fratty” image and attract young drinkers. This led to a new outrage from our critics and further fueled the calls for boycott (Stewart,2023). The aftermath was sales and purchase incidence down by 32% in Q4 of 2023, at first this was higher in Republican counties but over time evened out between Republican and Democrat counties (Liakonyte, 2024). On top of the boycott causing losses, bars, stores, and sports venues lowered their shelving and stock in response which meant that we were even more stunted from regaining from this loss. In our attempt to reach a broader audience and expand our brand name to younger individuals we did some things right and something wrong. I believe that

patriotic commercial bringing back old nostalgic Bud light themes, while also having a VP call the brand “out of touch” and “fratty”. Further driving the boycott to continue (Verstl,2024), if we are unable to get together as a brand and issue statements uniformly, we will only cause more issues by issuing any form of statement or advertisement. Also, the timeframe for a throw back style commercial was poor retrospectively having the opposite intended effect and further alienating long term customers and coming off as fake to our critics. Clearly this all shows a major underlying issue in our communications as a company and how we want to represent our values. This breakdown in communication has also led to any of our remaining goodwill being thrown away and leading to further calls for boycott or individuals and businesses walking away from our brand for good. Crisis Communication Plan For our crisis communication plan, I believe the first step is to determine what we are attempting to mitigate against, for this instance we will be attempting to mitigate from a business disturbance like what we have seen in 2023 and the reputation crisis that we face as this is a form of crisis that affects us all at Bud Light and is likely to continue until addressed(Paychex, 2023). To develop our message, we need a team to oversee our stakeholder meetings, develop a message, and deliver that message to our stakeholders and the public (Stevenson University, N/D). I believe it is important for us as a company to be on the same page so senior management including our CEO should be either part of these meetings or informed of the content and outcomes. We need to reach out to our important stakeholders, first and foremost we should address concerns from within our company. Our employees, stock holders, and executives must first be heard, and we must consider any concerns and how they play against the companies’ interest, if our employees

want a more socially progressive company but it comes at the cost of profits or jobs due to boycotts or financial losses than we need to be able to understand concerns and communicate the reasons we are taking the steps that we are. Next, we should approach our partners who have stayed with us through this storm, we need to find out what is working for them and what they would like to see change to determine where we can enable them to sell our products. Again, we are still recovering and in the tail end of a large-scale boycott, our partners that stuck with us have valuable knowledge on how we can maintain our current business relationships and they are the key to unlocking future opportunities. Currently we are in a very precarious position so this next group of stakeholders will need to be approached carefully. We need to speak to both advocates and critics of our brand, a lot of our goal to be a beer for every American requires us to walk a fine line between two divided groups. Our advocates will offer us the ability to understand what we are doing wrong, and how we can retain their business and have them suggest Bud Light to others in the future. Our critics some of which use to be our biggest advocates or clientele will offer us insight in what they believe we have done incorrectly and how we are able to regain some of the goodwill lost while also allowing us to consider how we can show universal support for Americans without alienating our base. After taking all these stakeholders into account and listening and understanding concerns, criticisms, and compliments we as upper-level management need to come together potentially with a representative of each of these stakeholder groups and discuss a way forward. Overall, our likely response will need to be a middle of the road statement staying away from past controversies so as not to spark further damage to the brand. We will need to deliver the message multiple ways to reach a large audience, I believe that a general statement from the CEO announcing our future

attempting to be inclusive for everyone, however we also want to be careful to not alienate or disregard criticism’s so that we do not fuel a further boycott. We also need to make sure critics feel heard otherwise we will be taking a large risk in interviewing or being interviewed while not regaining good will or having appropriate messaging. Overall, our general message needs to be we are here for the American People under god indivisible in these times of great divide we want to be the beer that the American people can drink, conversate over, and enjoy. CEO Unfortunately, this gets worse before it gets better; to restore goodwill, we will need to take some more losses and potentially create more critics. I believe as the CEO it is important for this company to move forward and not look at the past, further apologies or fence jumping as a company will only stoke the fires on the end of the torches as the boycott rages on. We will first need to restore our good will with the partners, grocery stores, bars, and sports arenas, to do this, move stock that would expire, and to encourage our partners to give Bud Light some of the previous spotlight afforded to it on their shelves or in their coolers I believe that we need to offer a discount to their purchase price. On top of this either a rebate or coupon will encourage consumers to purchase the products to get the product moving off the shelf allowing our partners to order more. Higher profit margins for the partners and removal of potentially stagnant products will give us some goodwill with the partners. For consumers I believe the appropriate course of action is to allow this to calm down while offering a slight price reduction that will help give us a slight edge on competing beers that have taken our spot considering this boycott. Addressing some of our most outspoken and famous critic’s such a Chris Rock will allow me to understand him and him in return to understand where we are coming

from as a company that is full of American workers and not just corporate social justice advocates. If nothing else helps him and others like him understand might alleviate some of his outspoken opinions especially on social media which will allow consumers to move forward from this boycott and not continue being reminded. Unfortunately, I believe we need to have a very middle of the road approach to future advertisements at least until which time we regain public approval. Advertisements will need to be screened and carefully considered and all partnerships will have new approval processes to manage this goal. We do not want to come off as divisive or dismissive of anyone, instead focusing on what brings us together as Americans. I believe that bringing all of these plans to the shareholders and board along with a improved plan for marketing including the approval process being heavily vetted will allow them to take faith that we are attempting everything we are able to continue forward without forgetting our past. In the future for our advertising, especially with concerns to influencers who may have politically charged allies as well as enemies we will need to be very selective and manage our company’s cultural impact. Once we have passed this post boycott stage, we will be able to support the social concerns of our employees and customers as well as potential future consumers. However, when we do this, we need to implement counterculture advertisements. For example, if we support a progressive or have them advertise a promotion, we should also have a conservative do the same. Instead of placing all our figurative eggs in one basket, in this case advertising dollars we should disperse them, this allows us in the case of backlash to show that we are a diverse company who supports “Americans” as a whole and not just one side or the other of the cultural battlefield in America. Some of the members of the boycott may not have taken such an outlandish stance if they saw someone they

may not sit well with the extreme on either side, but regular middle and moderate individuals will either not mind or appreciate the messaging. As a consumer I stopped drinking Bud Light for a short time, not due to the original Dylan Mulvaney issue but due to the corporate mis handling and mis communications along with the stigma that grew around Bud Light due to these corporate fuel to the boycott fire. I had no real feelings on the initial promotion one way or the other, but the corporate messaging that came out, especially from the VP who although explaining the brand seemed to also be referencing the customer base described as “fratty” and “out of touch”. Personally, as a 32-year-old blue collar man who works hard and enjoys a cold beer from time to time I find it disrespectful to be called out of touch from a corporate VP who has just alienated the base of her own company. Some of the other messaging that came out seemed to be more condescending than understanding which must have come off that way to others as the boycott intensified. On top of this came a stigma when choosing a Bud Light over a similar beer just further encouraged to seek alternatives. I believe gaining goodwill back by relieving the VP of her position was probably a good way to establish that the company understands that further alienation of the consumer base will not help the company. I also believe that avoiding anymore public relation disasters and keeping relatively quiet while mending relationships in the background was likely the best way to rebuild. I remember a few months in that Bud Light products had remained stagnant on the shelves, so they needed to put the products on sale to avoid them going bad this allowed people to pick them at a fraction of the price as the alternatives which challenged the real value of the boycott, personally I began drinking occasionally after that point. I believe that the Bud Light story is a cautionary tale that American companies should study. Although other companies

have had similar issues Bud Lights initial inability to stop false information and the spread of rumors and following confusing messaging and pandering advertisement attempts along with the out right dis respect of consumers feelings lead to a prolonged boycott and that exacerbated the supply chain and shelf-life issue which led to further losses. As a company the greatest challenge is to walk the line between two extremes while figuring out new ways to capture more of the market.

Stewart, E. (2023, June 30). The Bud Light Boycott, Explained as Much as Is Possible. Vox.

https://www.vox.com/money/2023/4/12/23680135/bud-light-boycott-dylan-mulvaney-travis-

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Verstl, I. (2024, January 1). Bud Light boycott: one year on. BRAUWELT.

https://brauwelt.com/en/international-report/the-americas/646828-bud-light-boycott-one-year-on