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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27715 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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Bud Light/Anheuser-Busch just penned a large advertising partnership deal with the UFC. The unconfirmed reports I've read are suggesting the 7-year deal totals about $100 million or so.

Dana White, President of the UFC, suggests its 'not determined by the money' and while this is an eyeroll-worthy statement, in a sense it must be correct, because the obvious benefit to Bud Light is that partnering with one of the few remaining bastions of 'toxic' masculinity left to Western Culture offers a promising route to rehabilitate their image and customer base after the Dylan Mulvaney Kerfuffle tarnished their red-blooded, blue-collared reputation.

Which of course means it is still about the money, since Bud Light sales remain in the tank and thus regaining customers would mean a return to their former glory and profitability.

Will it work? I'm personally skeptical. The move is actually a pretty good, and costly, way to show that they're returning to their roots as a beer for the hard-working and rough-handed everyman, since the UFC is honestly synonymous with uncouth, politically incorrect athletes beating the snot out of each other, and features sexy ring girls at every fight with the Machisimo levels simply off the charts. Trump himself is known to attend events and get standing ovations. Tying themselves to THAT brand is actually likely to hurt their 'cred' (such as it exists) with any liberals who might have been swayed by their moves towards increased inclusion. I'm honestly looking forward to the next Sean Strickland (the current UFC middleweight champion) fight, just to see how he might mouth off in a way that will lead to controversy against Bud Light pushing in the other direction. EDIT: It has already begun LMAO

That said, it's not like anyone expects the "beefy men beating each other to death" league to try to conform with polite norms anyway.

Still. It isn't anything resembling an acknowledgement of the mistake, and even if the logo is plastered all over the Octagon and fighter's shorts, all that has to happen for this to backfire is for people to just... not buy the beer. The UFC pockets the money and the needle doesn't budge otherwise. It sure didn't work for Crypto.com or Vechain, both of whom forked over a ton of money for UFC sponsorship.

There's also the insidious take that this is an attempt to try to bring the UFC itself to heel, by exerting enough influence over it to cause it to clamp down on its athletes and 'clean up' its image (read: bring in line with progressive values) rather than allow it to exist as a potential rogue cultural element resisting the leftward swim of Cthulhu.

Given that I hold the position that martial arts/combat sports are probably the last remaining healthy outlet for positive masculinity, if THAT is the goal I'd be extremely alarmed. Not saying it is, but when that much money is getting thrown around, you expect strings to be attached.

I had 'jokingly' suggested to friends a while back that the single best way to bring male customers back to Bud Light was to simply hire a cadre of busty women who would stand in the beer aisle at the grocery store wearing an American Flag bikini and offering to fellate anyone who bought a case. Boom. Apology accepted.

And considering how many buxom ladies with relatively lax morals you could afford to hire for $100 million, I am wondering if that might have been a better plan overall.

I am curious to know if this will work. I haven't been following the fortunes of Bud Light recently, so it could be that the people who switched will stick with the new beer brands and not move back. They already tried a poorly-received 'going back to our roots' ad that only served to have everyone go "how dumb do they think we are?" so this may blow up in their faces the same way. Some opinion also seems to be that the brand tanked just because it's terrible beer that has been doing poorly for years (hence the ill-advised attempt to make it relevant and appeal to young drinkers):

CEO Brendan Whitworth’s June apology was widely panned as insincere. By that month, Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev lost $27 billion in market value. In July, the company announced it would lay off 350 employees. Frustrated, Billy Busch, heir to the Busch Family offered to buy back the Bud Light brand from InBev. By August, Bud Light’s sales had declined 26.8 percent while rival Modelo’s sales grew 15.9 percent. On Oct. 9, Bud Light’s stock closed at its lowest since the April triggering event.

Research shows that advertising only helps brands with above-average quality. Advertising cannot compensate for mediocre or sub-par quality to build customer loyalty, as was the case with Bud Light.

Because of this perception of its quality, Bud Light’s outsized advertising only garnered higher awareness but not necessarily higher customer loyalty. In 2022, more customers were aware of Bud Light than Modelo (88 percent versus 78 percent). Yet, both brands had identical customer loyalty (78 percent) among users.

Bud Light’s management conflated high customer awareness with high customer loyalty. Yet, its below-average product provided no meaningful differentiation from competitors and eroded customer loyalty. Customers switched when Bud Light transgressed.

Because of the mediocre quality, it's easy to switch to another brand, and the lost customers might not be coaxed back:

In the four weeks to September 9, Bud Light sales declined by around 30 percent in both volume and dollar value, compared to the same period a year ago. The statistics were compiled by Bump Williams Consulting.

Speaking to Fox News Digital, Harry Schuhmacher, the Beer Business Daily publisher, said that the latest figures show that the decline in Bud Light sales has become "quasi permanent."

Schuhmacher added: "You see Bud Light still just stubbornly down around 30 percent in volume compared to last year, which is where it's been since May or June.

"That tells me that this is quasi-permanent, meaning those consumers are just lost forever," he said.

Nielson data released in August showed that Bud Light sales fell by 26.5 percent for the week ending August 5, compared to the previous year. This was a higher decline than the 25.9 percent year-on-year fall recorded in the week ending June 17.

I also wonder how poor, poor Dylan is doing; they were so traumatised that they couldn't even step outside their front door (apart from that trip to Peru because they needed to feel safe. So they went to Peru. Yeah, I believe that was the exact reason and not trying to scrape last crumb of publicity out of it). So, so scared to leave the house that they had to fly three thousand miles away and record every step on TikTok. Such is the horror of the transphobic backlash! Such horror that a trip to France immediately afterwards was necessary. And onwards to the UK. And then back to New York for fashion week. And then popping off to London to receive a Woman Of The Year award.

It really is awful how this poor person has been terrorised into being unable to leave the safety of their own home!

One thing they should do is just change the branding. The hideous blue can is now associated with Dylan Mulvaney, and honestly it looks like ugly walmart aesthetics anyway.

Bring back the 1990s era silver can.

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