Companies are finally paying the ultimate price for catering to radical leftists.
It turns out that far-left progressives are not the core consumers for most brands.
And one reality TV star ripped into Bud Light’s “woke” disaster.
Multi-millionaire investor Kevin O’Leary – aka “Mr. Wonderful” – is perhaps most widely known because of his role on reality television show Shark Tank where people pitch company ideas.
But O’Leary recently shot down one company that hasn’t appeared on his show: Bud Light.
The beer brand has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.
Bud Light entered into a sponsorship deal with controversial transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney and the decision has resulted in disastrous consequences.
On April Fool’s Day, Mulvaney released a video announcing the deal, “Happy March Madness!! Just found out this had to do with sports and not just saying it’s a crazy month! In celebration of this sports thing [Bud Light] is giving you the chance to win $15,000! Share a video with #EasyCarryContest for a chance to win!! Good luck!”
People thought it was an April Fool’s joke until an Anheuser-Busch spokesperson confirmed the announcement was true a couple days later.
In the two months since, Bud Light’s sales have tanked roughly 26% with no rebound in sight.
O’Leary called Bud Light the “poster boy” for woke brand mismanagement.
“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,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary also pointed out that the boycott hasn’t flamed out mainly because Bud Light does not have a strong moat (i.e. a durable competitive advantage that protects the company).
It’s easy for consumers to switch to another beer if they’re given a reason to do so – and that’s exactly what happened in the Mulvaney fiasco.
“You have to ask yourself, in crisis management, ‘What do you do?’ Because if you go to the other side and try to balance the gender narrative you’re going to get a whole new onslaught of people that don’t like that. And so when you go into gender narrative on a beer which is primarily consumed by men, maybe you should have thought a little bit about that in reading that room. Maybe you should say, ‘Well, does this really fit my consumers’ psyche and narrative?’” O’Leary said.
Bud Light has become the poster boy for brand mismanagement. The narrative that has risen around Bud Light is a good lesson. It highlights the power of social media. People that didn’t like the message, took it out by boycotting the product immediately. pic.twitter.com/Hf9xh6stDr
— Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) May 23, 2023
Bud Light chose to kowtow to the radicals and now the company has decimated its brand so severely that it may never fully recover.