Anheuser-Busch InBev is hoping a huge Bud Light ad campaign spent during this year’s Super Bowl will help lead to a great comeback after an organic boycott caused the beer to crater from its one-time spot as the top-selling beer in the country.
The company is set to sponsor two Bud Light ads, a 60-second ad, a 30-second ad, and a Michelob Ultra ad in hopes of reviving crashing sales, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“We need to make sure for these moments of massive reach that we choose the right brands to meet the moment, not only on the TV screen but brands that can really scale out the opportunity that Super Bowl and the NFL playoffs and everything else provide,” Kyle Norrington, Anheuser-Busch’s chief commercial officer said in a press release. “These are the brands that we thought deserve that opportunity this year.”
The amount that the desperate AB InBev is spending on the three ads was not revealed, but with a 30-second ad ranging around seven million dollars, the spending spree is likely to top $25 million.
Husband-and-wife actors Miles and Keleigh Teller dancing to telephone-hold music in a 2023 Bud Light Super Bowl ad. (The Associated Press)
Throughout the season, Bud Light has been targeting NFL fans — who were once a prime customer base for the beer — in hopes of reviving flagging sales.
According to sales consulting firm Bump Williams, Bud Light was down 28.9 percent in sales year-over-year, while the new top-selling beer, Modelo Especial, was up 15.1 percent in the first weeks of 2024. InBev owns Modelo Especial outside the U.S., but in the U.S., the brand is distributed by Constellation Brands due to federal regulation requirements.
Early in 2023, Bud Light was hit by a massive boycott after beer drinkers found that the beer’s marketing chief, Alissa Heinerscheid, had called her own customers “out of touch,” and then things got worse when the brand launched an ill-advised ad campaign with cartoonish transgender extremist Dylan Mulvaney. The boycott toppled Bud Light from its longtime perch as America’s #1 beer.
The Journal reports that this year’s minute-long ad will rely on humor and introduce a new character amid its ongoing “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy” marketing theme. Meanwhile, the 30-second ad will showcase some of the beer’s distributors and feature the famed Clydesdale horses.
It remains to be seen whether the Super Bowl ads will help Bud Light. The recent move by the UFC to re-sign with Bud Light with a $100 million campaign brought UFC chief Dana White an avalanche of condemnation.
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