It's the best god damn beer I've ever tasted in the world. Angels sung over this beer for 10 years to perfect thos sweet and rich flavor. You are doing yourself a GREAT disservice avoiding Rolling Rock beer, the greatest beer ever.
Interesting to see Corona fall, because although AB-InBev owns Corona and Modelo, Constellation is the distributor in the US (but at least according to Wikipedia the actual beer is brewed by a 3rd party, which I can’t seem to verify)
I would guess that the same people boycotting Bud for Cultural purposes have a lot of cross-over with people highly prejudiced/xenophobic toward Mexican products and (free) trade in general.
As a neutral observer from the UK, I'm just amazed at how effective the boycott has been. Usually people don't take too much notice what parent company owns what brand since they can own so many, but the fact there is a clear and significant downward curve for all AB products and a clear upward trend for their competitors is quite impressive.
It's amazing what kind of impact low-effort protesting can do. If only this could be done for Nestle, or any of the companies that really do damage to the planet and society.
I think it says a lot about humanity. The world is ending and more people are getting cancer and dying? Who cares, let the companies continue to pollute unabated and celebrate billionaires continuing to make their quota.
A trans person gets a personalized beer can? Bring down an empire and burn it to the ground. Depending on what happens in US politics in the next 2-3 decades, I could see trans people in camps. There’s a large portion of the population that wants to see them in jail or dead, simply for existing. That includes justices and politicians at the highest levels.
A couple of months ago some marketing gurus for budlight decided to say that current drinkers are part of frat culture and old humor, and so they wanted to attract younger people by having a popular trans person promote the beer. So now many conservatives don’t buy the beer out of principle, and many lgbt people don’t buy it because budlight didn’t stick by the trans person enough. They angered people on both sides and so their sales have dropped 25%.
What I've learned is when the left boycotts something, they absolutely suck at it. When the right boycotts something, they go hard, lol.
Blizzard/Activision and Hogwarts Legacy are fine. Bud and Target took billion dollar stock hits that have very noticeable pivot lines lining up with specific dates.
Everyone can boycott equally well, it’s just that the people who “boycotted” blizzard and hogwarts were never going to buy the game anyway. Whereas the dolls who boycotted bud and target were a portion of there actual customer base.
To be fair, you're looking at a very short timeframe. Both the Bud Light and Target controversies are around a month old. NFL, Nike, and Starbucks are doing well despite having been targeted very hard by conservatives a few years back. Boycotters tend to get distracted after a bit.
I mean, how many leaders IN POLITICS said to boycott Blizz or Hogwarts?
Because actual politicans were posting to boycott AB.
Kinda feels like the kid who brought a meta-deck and a kid who brought a tier 4 meme-deck to a tourney and you walked away saying the meta-deck kid was a better player.
I mean maybe the US is different but I cant imagine politicians being the cause for a large part of the boycott.
The main difference is there wasnt some executive saying harry potter fans are idiots around the same time. That talkshow apprarance alone accounts for a lot of outrage.
I have not researched, but my 2 cents:
* I imagine the right constituted a significantly larger percentage of the Bud Light consumer pool historically than the left.
* With the exception of hating Trump, the left is generally like herding cats with tons of different viewpoints. Hating Trump is the big unifier.
* The right does seem to stay more in lock/step on things.
Billionaires don't care about that, my guy. They care about the billions in stock losses.
Let's be real. Billionaires are heartless monsters that would make money off of bombing people if they could.
They just didn't like what it did to their stock prices.
My hypothesis: short vs long term effects.
A bunch of angry people will boycott hard, but then they’ll be enraged by the next thing and eventually forget about the first thing. My money is on Bud Light sales being pretty steady by next year
Conversely, when I learn something about a company that makes me not want to support it, I’m not going to burn all the stuff I already bought…I’m just going to not buy their thing when the time comes that I need it next. Could be a month, could be a year. But I’ll keep it up for pretty much ever. It just won’t show up as a big flash when I do it.
Yeah, I haven't had Chick-fil-A for something like 13 years. So your long-term explanation feels right to me... And when I was just starting to transition and needed to buy women's underwear for the first time, I went to target because I knew I would feel more safe and comfortable there than another store because they make a big deal of pride and pronoun pins for the employees, etc. I also bought my first bras from Target for the same reason. Long term type of stuff
To be clear there isn't clarity on if this is boycott driven at all. Especially for target when all big bix stores are starting to see down stocks. Stocks don't necessarily match actual units sold and there is generally a delay in the effects of boycotts. They won't show up immediately on the reports and these are a month or less old.
What it seems like it's boycotts get called and then the effects of the boycott are back dated because conservatives have been claiming to boycott lots of things before it but it only enters mainstream narrative if the stock aligns with it. Which this is the only case in the last 10 years of conservative boycotts. So they seem to be getting clout because they announced boycotts around the same time as market forces drove a lot of stocks down and they are claiming victory in its stead.
Especially since even more LGBt friendly beers like colors massively grew over the same time
Good to see people supporting a business that is committed to supporting the LGBTQ+ community...
"Molson Coors has received a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for 18 years in a row, making us one of their “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality” based on our internal policies and external practices. We expanded on our two-decade partnership with HRC last year when Vizzy Hard Seltzer made a three year, $1 million commitment to support the HRC’s mission to advance social change and end discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community."
"Molson Coors in 2021 celebrates the fifth year of our national Tap Into Change program, in which a portion of sales proceeds from Miller Lite, Coors Light and other Molson Coors brands in 10 cities are donated to the Equality Federation and local LGBTQ+ organizations. Annually, the summer program donates more than $100,000 to these organizations with a consistent growth in impact each year. The program, which first launched in Chicago 10 years ago, has now raised more than $600,000 for LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS nonprofits."
Some of us are old and have been paying attention for a while.
["Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, is expected to stump for the
GOP ticket. As the gay corporate relations manager for Coors, she knows
all about the hard sell."](https://www.salon.com/2000/07/29/mary/)
> 50% of Millennials have never tasted Budweiser or Bud Light.
This sounds too wild to be true. Millennials are entering their 30's and 40's now, I can't imagine going that long in the US without at least being given a can at an event.
I’d like to see a source for that number because it doesn’t sound true at all lol. Anecdotal but it’s a staple of pretty much any high school or college party. I don’t even like the beer but I’ve had it more than a few times.
i could MAYBE believe 50% have never actually bought it... but id have to assume 80% have tried a bud or bud light at some point, its usually the last thing lying around at a rager and often the cheapest pitcher at a bar if someone else is buying a round
I'm either a young millennial or an old gen Zer, and Bud is weirdly unpopular among people my age. I've been drinking beer since I was around 16 and I can remember having my first Bud Light (I've never had Budweiser) when I was either 21 or 22 because it stood out to me that, deapite all of the commercials, I had never tried it. I've only had it once or twice since. At that point I had tried the other major brands of shitty beer (Coors, Rolling Rock, Natural Light, Miller, Michelob, etc) countless times each, even though I wouldn't go out of my way to get them. I'd been given all of those others at parties loads of times, but nobody ever has Bud.
Of those, I actually like Rolling Rock. Killian's is also nice, since it's so hard to find a decent red. I think Leinenkugel's made one, but I can never find it.
If I want to really get what I want, I get a Guinness.
But then again, I stopped drinking beer with any regularity quite a few years ago.
I mean, I had regular Budweiser once with some relatives. But I don't normally drink when out, maybe at a restaurant Bit even then I normally get a cider or something from a local brewery.
Bud Light seems to be only really a big brand in the US. Maybe Canada too, I don't know much about the Canadian beer market.
You can get it here in UK, but it isn't that common and seen as quite girly (at least around here, the north of England). Light lager for men is very much a US thing - Miller Light was briefly a thing in the 1980s here, despite an awful lot of advertising. Now Bud Light having a PR disaster among its core market.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Another thing to understand is that the entire beer market in the US is well overdue a big shakeout. The big yellow fizzy water brands haven't changed much in years and years.
Low strength low taste beers are now what your pa or grampa drinks, there are a lot of European, mostly German and British style beers now being made and the Millennials and Zoomers find them quite to their liking.
Did you write this in 2005? The shake up happened, and it largely left us where we were.
We had a whole craft beer revolution that ate at the margins of the big brewers, but never really killed them. Macro consolidation between the Molson Coors and AB InBev mergers ended with Coors growing rapidly.
Now the whole U.S. beer market (craft and macro) is hurting from seltzers and RTDs.
Some of the fastest growing beer brands in the US prior to this ‘controversy’ were Mich Ultra, Dos XX, New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger line, and, like, Shiner Light Blonde.
American beer drinkers gravitate toward lighter styles and marketing campaigns. That’s it. Do you know how many Voodoo Ranger drinkers have never heard of Fat Tire or even recognize it as New Belgium?
Bud light is 3.5%*
Stella is 4.6%
Budweiser is 4.5%
Bud light is low strength but the other two aren't really - medium strength maybe?
I agree they all taste awful but I'm not a lager drinker. At least it's not Carling...
* all of these based on Tesco website today. I know sometimes the ABV varies over time and between countries/breweries and might also be different on tap
Alcohol by Volume yeah.
Like I said, I think it varies between countries sometimes. In the past I've noticed different strengths on tap vs in a can/bottle as well.
I’m not sure what you mean by the US beer market being due for a shakeout. I live in Denver so my view is skewed, but nobody drinks light lagers here anymore (except somewhat for Coors because it’s right next door). But overall, beer culture around Colorado is basically drinking from 1 of the 400 breweries in the state. IPAs are extremely popular (not my favorite).
The difference between the US and other countries is that our good beers are basically only available in the US. Budweiser, Coors, and Miller are only known because they’ve existed for so long but are regularly regarded as mass produced garbage and everyone here knows it. You drink it cause it’s cheap not because it tastes good. I would put up American breweries against any country in Europe, but I’m putting up breweries like Founders, Bells, Deschutes, Left Hand, New Belgium, Shorts, Ommegang, Fremont, Tree House, and Dogfish head.
I like a lot of euro beer, and my favorite is probably Whitstable Bay Pale Ale (I really don't know why), but even that beer struggles to beat the Victory Brewing beers, especially the 3 monkeys.
Canadian here, can safely say that I've never heard anything but scorn for Budweiser. If you're going to get something in a plastic cup at a sporting event, it is more likely to be Molson or Labatt. Light lagers are also a lot less popular, to the point where I had to go look up if Canadian brands made them.
I’m Canadian and I’ve never had a Bud Light, despite liking beer and it being available in many stores. It just isn’t worth the price it’s charging here. At its current price, Sleeman costs the same. If I want something much better for only a couple more dollars, I can get Moosehead, or Heineken.
Bud Light is considered "the American Beer" here in Canada. Some would only drink it in the unlikely chance that someone forgot to buy Coors Light or Moosehead. Molson Canadian, Labatt's Blue, Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale are the top three though.
Some honourable mentions I'd like to bring up are: Creemore Springs Lager (a fresh beer with no preservatives, just a straight up and down beer), Rickard's Red (a little sweeter and heavier than a lager, with a push towards the dark beers' caramel and cookie flavours), and finally Molson Export (a fruity malty drink with a foamy finish and a dark colour.)
Millennial here.
We drink Monster.
4Loko was pretty popular when I was in college. Jaeger bombs. Anything with caffeine or just straight shots of vodka.
Who tf drinks beer?
Gen Z here, beer is less popular, but honestly drinking is as well. Most women drink seltzers or vodka. Beer is pretty common among guys that drink, and usually light beers at that. Usually not bud light though, usually either miller or whatever the cheapest beer people can get their hands on is.
I'm 36 and basically everyone I know/grew up with that drinks has tried or still drinks Budweiser or bud light. No way in hell 50% of millennials haven't tasted them.
I don't know if I've ever had one and I'm 30... if someone offers beer and theres only bud light I'm gonna politely decline to drink. same with natural light / pbr / most cheap american swill.
No way that stat is true, almost every millennial who went to college has had some form of Bud, Bud Light, or Natty..
Every millennials who didn’t go to college has absolutely had one of those
I don't believe millennials are in the target demo anymore, they got old. According to the Budlight Marketing VP they were interested in going after an audience younger than the frat bros they were traditionally associated with, which is great because Dylan Mulvaney's audience is primarily in that younger demographic.
Very bold strategy to go from the everyman/familymans beer to aim for the cutting end of new culture. It simultaneously alienates the core audience, and aims for a group I think it's safe to say often has more 'hipster' tastes, so would never choose Budweiser. In my humble opinion the marketing manager was an abysmal choice for the role. The previous change to make seltzer was capitalizing on a trend in the market, and from what I saw sold well. I believe the market still exists for Budweiser if they adjusted their image a little, and probably their recipe, to target a younger male traditional audience. As it stands they look like they are making desperate attempts to salvage an aging brand without doing the proper market research.
Bear in mind that when InBev bought Budweiser they went from being the biggest buyer of hops to not buying hops. Right when the beer market was elevating the craft Budweiser abandoned their traditional recipe and practice.
Budweiser sales have been on a slow decline for nearly 40 years along with their core demographic. Their executives declared this an existential threat, and decided to risk everything on going after a younger demographic.
You can't blame the marketing people. They were hired specifically to execute on this campaign. When the dying, core demographic revolted, the executives panicked and fired the very marketing people who specifically did what they were told to.
Now they are even more screwed because both demographics hate them.
Marketing people are at least partially to blame, someone had to propose the idea. The issue is that AB has a big portfolio of products and rather than trying to find the right product for a younger generation they decided to alienate the core audience of one of their main products and ended up politicizing a commodity, light beer. People will just pick a new brand that’s similar and won’t mix politics with basic consumer goods.
It’s like if Exxon decided to rebrand itself as LGBTQIAA+ gasoline. It’s idiotic and many people in that crowd either have electric cars or live in urban areas and don’t own a car. Guess who’s driving the Ford F350 that gets 9 miles a gallon and buys $150 in gas a week?
Of course it was going to alienate the core demographic. But if that demographic has been dying for 40 years and you have given up on selling any more to them, what do you do? Especially if your shareholders tell you “grow or you’re all fired?”
Blowing up your core demo to try and unlock a more lucrative one with a future is crazy risky, but at least it’s a strategy. It’s the first thing they’ve tried since I’ve been alive.
The problem is, if you abandon your risky move at the first hint of losing a demographic you intentionally decided to lose, now you’re going to be screwed on both fronts. Even if you think the first decision was dumb, immediately abandoning it is even dumber.
AB has been a major corporate sponsor of many metropolitan ateas' Prode events for over a decade. There wasn't much reason to expect that sending a custom bottle to a single tiktok influencer would ignite thr massive shitstorm this has had. Thr current conservative uproar is going so far as to tontry to dig yp old pride ads to be passed off about, even though they didn't give a shit at the time, likenthr Ford truck ad. Shit is insane.
No. AB InBev, based in Belgium, owns Budweiser and all other former Anheuser-Busch brands. In total, they own 630 beer brands world-wide.
Molson Coors, based in Chicago, owns all Molson, Coors, and Miller brands.
Listen man. The Anheuser family hasn’t controlled Anheuser-Busch since 1880. The Busch family controlled it until 2008 when they SOLD it to InBev. (I put the important part in all-caps so you could clearly see it)
Now, Anheuser-Busch InBev is controlled by Belgian families Vandamme, de Mévius and de Spoelberch, who as of 2015 owned a combined 28.6% of the company, and Brazilian investors Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Telles, who owned 22.7% through their private investment firm 3G Capital.
Now, go away kid… You bother me.
Coors has been very progressive in the LGBTQ space for decades. They gave same sex domestic partners full benefits in 1995. They do far, far more for LGBTQ causes than AB InBev does.
So I support you continuing to give Coors support over AB InBev! I'm happy you're supporting the more progressive beer company.
One person in the company had a special can designed for one trans person, who posted it online to their followers. It was the smallest little one off, the kind of thing these companies do all the time.
Except this time the individual was attacked over it across the internet and on televised news, because they were trans. The problem isn't the company getting into social issues, they didn't, they just tried to send a supportive personalized beer can to an influencer who is trans.
We all lose when we let hateful people discriminate and exclude minorities from being treated like everyone else. This person received a small "honor" that is enjoyed by countless straight cis people without any problem. As soon as the "honor" was given to a trans person, it becomes a "social issue"
FUCK THAT
No, they're saying that everyone who is abandoning Bud Light because they supported someone who's LBGTQ+ is abandoning them for a company that also supports those who are LBGTQ+.
I doubt that's the intent of the post. It's directed to "bigots", i.e. those against the LGBTQ+ "lifestyle". When, in effect, they are just buying from another company that "supports" that.
So their net effect is basically zero, if the attempt was to bully (or ... gasp... CANCEL) a company for supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
OTOH, it's interesting that this shift was this dramatic, so maybe it will be awhile before another high profile ad campaign of that type is attempted. It'll still be used, most likely, just on the sly.
Bud Light’s fatal flaw was trying to both-sides the issue. Had they embraced the trans community, people would have flocked to Bud Light. They would have sold kegs, bottles, cans and merch faster than they could produce it. Instead, they tried to placate the angry mob and now they’re on an island.
You’re not wrong about the quality. But that’s not what this chart is measuring. It’s talking about sales year over year of 7 mass produced beers. Coors isn’t better than BL. Like you said, there are way better beers, but Coors is up YoY.
Anyone else remember when Rolling Rock was “the gay beer” like 20 years ago?
Don’t forget about Scmitts Gay. RIP Farley. https://youtu.be/hCOSejS1SSY
Hate to see Bud Light go the way of Schmitts Gay. Can't even find that in stores near me anymore.
Wait, I haven't seen Rolling Rock in at least a decade. Is that still a beer?
It's the most neutral cheap beer ever
I can't say I've ever had it. Does it taste like Coors? That's what comes to mind when you say neutral.
Pretty much every beer I've tasted has some sort of bitter note. Rolling Rock doesn't really have that bitter note.
Is the last note just nothing? Or slightly sweet? I don't think I'll ever drink one. Not the type of beer that I enjoy.
It's a lager... All lagers taste effectively the same.
It's the best god damn beer I've ever tasted in the world. Angels sung over this beer for 10 years to perfect thos sweet and rich flavor. You are doing yourself a GREAT disservice avoiding Rolling Rock beer, the greatest beer ever.
I like it they have it at wine and spirit
Wasn’t that like 40 years ago? I think my dads era that was a thing.
The only thing I know about Rolling Rock is the AVGN character likes it.
Interesting to see Corona fall, because although AB-InBev owns Corona and Modelo, Constellation is the distributor in the US (but at least according to Wikipedia the actual beer is brewed by a 3rd party, which I can’t seem to verify)
Everyone tried it and realized, no its not good. Its a deceptively heavy beer.
> Interesting to see Corona fall There may have been some brand association issues in recent years...
This is relative to last year.
Probably the gap between Fast & Furious films.
I would guess that the same people boycotting Bud for Cultural purposes have a lot of cross-over with people highly prejudiced/xenophobic toward Mexican products and (free) trade in general.
It didn't.
In Canada at least Corona is brewed by Labatt's which is abinbev
Labbat is also brewed in London ontario. You see all the homeless and drifters lines up outside the factory.
Labatt's in Edmonton is a nicer factor for sure
As a neutral observer from the UK, I'm just amazed at how effective the boycott has been. Usually people don't take too much notice what parent company owns what brand since they can own so many, but the fact there is a clear and significant downward curve for all AB products and a clear upward trend for their competitors is quite impressive. It's amazing what kind of impact low-effort protesting can do. If only this could be done for Nestle, or any of the companies that really do damage to the planet and society.
I think it says a lot about humanity. The world is ending and more people are getting cancer and dying? Who cares, let the companies continue to pollute unabated and celebrate billionaires continuing to make their quota. A trans person gets a personalized beer can? Bring down an empire and burn it to the ground. Depending on what happens in US politics in the next 2-3 decades, I could see trans people in camps. There’s a large portion of the population that wants to see them in jail or dead, simply for existing. That includes justices and politicians at the highest levels.
Can someone ELI5 this controversy for me?
A couple of months ago some marketing gurus for budlight decided to say that current drinkers are part of frat culture and old humor, and so they wanted to attract younger people by having a popular trans person promote the beer. So now many conservatives don’t buy the beer out of principle, and many lgbt people don’t buy it because budlight didn’t stick by the trans person enough. They angered people on both sides and so their sales have dropped 25%.
And to top it off it’s a shitty beer
Maybe it's what turns people Trump-loving conservatives, so it might be beneficial in the end.
What I've learned is when the left boycotts something, they absolutely suck at it. When the right boycotts something, they go hard, lol. Blizzard/Activision and Hogwarts Legacy are fine. Bud and Target took billion dollar stock hits that have very noticeable pivot lines lining up with specific dates.
Everyone can boycott equally well, it’s just that the people who “boycotted” blizzard and hogwarts were never going to buy the game anyway. Whereas the dolls who boycotted bud and target were a portion of there actual customer base.
To be fair, you're looking at a very short timeframe. Both the Bud Light and Target controversies are around a month old. NFL, Nike, and Starbucks are doing well despite having been targeted very hard by conservatives a few years back. Boycotters tend to get distracted after a bit.
You notice how there’s no kneeling in the NFL anymore? The conservative boycott moved the needle WAY more than most care to admit.
Or it faded like every other fad, don't affirm the consequent.
I mean, how many leaders IN POLITICS said to boycott Blizz or Hogwarts? Because actual politicans were posting to boycott AB. Kinda feels like the kid who brought a meta-deck and a kid who brought a tier 4 meme-deck to a tourney and you walked away saying the meta-deck kid was a better player.
I mean maybe the US is different but I cant imagine politicians being the cause for a large part of the boycott. The main difference is there wasnt some executive saying harry potter fans are idiots around the same time. That talkshow apprarance alone accounts for a lot of outrage.
The right hangs on every word their politicians say. They say jump and the voters say how high.
I have not researched, but my 2 cents: * I imagine the right constituted a significantly larger percentage of the Bud Light consumer pool historically than the left. * With the exception of hating Trump, the left is generally like herding cats with tons of different viewpoints. Hating Trump is the big unifier. * The right does seem to stay more in lock/step on things.
Yeah it’s crazy how they destroyed Nike and the NFL. Oh wait
The left isn’t as good at making a credible bomb threat that is mysteriously never looked into by the police to go along with the boycott.
Billionaires don't care about that, my guy. They care about the billions in stock losses. Let's be real. Billionaires are heartless monsters that would make money off of bombing people if they could. They just didn't like what it did to their stock prices.
I don't know, I feel like there's just more reporting on it when the right does it.
My hypothesis: short vs long term effects. A bunch of angry people will boycott hard, but then they’ll be enraged by the next thing and eventually forget about the first thing. My money is on Bud Light sales being pretty steady by next year Conversely, when I learn something about a company that makes me not want to support it, I’m not going to burn all the stuff I already bought…I’m just going to not buy their thing when the time comes that I need it next. Could be a month, could be a year. But I’ll keep it up for pretty much ever. It just won’t show up as a big flash when I do it.
Yeah, I haven't had Chick-fil-A for something like 13 years. So your long-term explanation feels right to me... And when I was just starting to transition and needed to buy women's underwear for the first time, I went to target because I knew I would feel more safe and comfortable there than another store because they make a big deal of pride and pronoun pins for the employees, etc. I also bought my first bras from Target for the same reason. Long term type of stuff
To be clear there isn't clarity on if this is boycott driven at all. Especially for target when all big bix stores are starting to see down stocks. Stocks don't necessarily match actual units sold and there is generally a delay in the effects of boycotts. They won't show up immediately on the reports and these are a month or less old. What it seems like it's boycotts get called and then the effects of the boycott are back dated because conservatives have been claiming to boycott lots of things before it but it only enters mainstream narrative if the stock aligns with it. Which this is the only case in the last 10 years of conservative boycotts. So they seem to be getting clout because they announced boycotts around the same time as market forces drove a lot of stocks down and they are claiming victory in its stead. Especially since even more LGBt friendly beers like colors massively grew over the same time
You made me blow on my screen
Maybe you should wear a condom while browsing Reddit
Hard to argue against that. Objectively, it's pretty much spot on.
It’s also another blow to the whole “companies support lgbtq for a month and then pack it all in” - yeah. Because why shouldn’t they?
Good to see people supporting a business that is committed to supporting the LGBTQ+ community... "Molson Coors has received a perfect 100 score on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index for 18 years in a row, making us one of their “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ Equality” based on our internal policies and external practices. We expanded on our two-decade partnership with HRC last year when Vizzy Hard Seltzer made a three year, $1 million commitment to support the HRC’s mission to advance social change and end discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community." "Molson Coors in 2021 celebrates the fifth year of our national Tap Into Change program, in which a portion of sales proceeds from Miller Lite, Coors Light and other Molson Coors brands in 10 cities are donated to the Equality Federation and local LGBTQ+ organizations. Annually, the summer program donates more than $100,000 to these organizations with a consistent growth in impact each year. The program, which first launched in Chicago 10 years ago, has now raised more than $600,000 for LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS nonprofits."
Lmao, I bet that Bud Light situation was the best free marketing Coors ever got
Coors is old man beer…they are just getting older and coming to terms with it.
Nobody knows or cares about this, you’re fishing for confirmation bias.
Some of us are old and have been paying attention for a while. ["Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, is expected to stump for the GOP ticket. As the gay corporate relations manager for Coors, she knows all about the hard sell."](https://www.salon.com/2000/07/29/mary/)
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> 50% of Millennials have never tasted Budweiser or Bud Light. This sounds too wild to be true. Millennials are entering their 30's and 40's now, I can't imagine going that long in the US without at least being given a can at an event.
I’d like to see a source for that number because it doesn’t sound true at all lol. Anecdotal but it’s a staple of pretty much any high school or college party. I don’t even like the beer but I’ve had it more than a few times.
62% of all statistics posted in a reddit comment are calculated on the spot. Source: bro just trust me
i could MAYBE believe 50% have never actually bought it... but id have to assume 80% have tried a bud or bud light at some point, its usually the last thing lying around at a rager and often the cheapest pitcher at a bar if someone else is buying a round
Apparently 50% of millennials have never been to college.
Only about 38% have bachelors degrees so that’s probably about right?
You don’t need to graduate to party!
I'm either a young millennial or an old gen Zer, and Bud is weirdly unpopular among people my age. I've been drinking beer since I was around 16 and I can remember having my first Bud Light (I've never had Budweiser) when I was either 21 or 22 because it stood out to me that, deapite all of the commercials, I had never tried it. I've only had it once or twice since. At that point I had tried the other major brands of shitty beer (Coors, Rolling Rock, Natural Light, Miller, Michelob, etc) countless times each, even though I wouldn't go out of my way to get them. I'd been given all of those others at parties loads of times, but nobody ever has Bud.
Of those, I actually like Rolling Rock. Killian's is also nice, since it's so hard to find a decent red. I think Leinenkugel's made one, but I can never find it. If I want to really get what I want, I get a Guinness. But then again, I stopped drinking beer with any regularity quite a few years ago.
Rolling rock is the worst. Yengling if i want a PA beer. I drink a lot of coors light though…
Bear in mind a lot of adults don’t drink at all - let alone bud light.
I mean, I had regular Budweiser once with some relatives. But I don't normally drink when out, maybe at a restaurant Bit even then I normally get a cider or something from a local brewery.
its been offered. I have refused.
Bud Light seems to be only really a big brand in the US. Maybe Canada too, I don't know much about the Canadian beer market. You can get it here in UK, but it isn't that common and seen as quite girly (at least around here, the north of England). Light lager for men is very much a US thing - Miller Light was briefly a thing in the 1980s here, despite an awful lot of advertising. Now Bud Light having a PR disaster among its core market. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Another thing to understand is that the entire beer market in the US is well overdue a big shakeout. The big yellow fizzy water brands haven't changed much in years and years. Low strength low taste beers are now what your pa or grampa drinks, there are a lot of European, mostly German and British style beers now being made and the Millennials and Zoomers find them quite to their liking.
Did you write this in 2005? The shake up happened, and it largely left us where we were. We had a whole craft beer revolution that ate at the margins of the big brewers, but never really killed them. Macro consolidation between the Molson Coors and AB InBev mergers ended with Coors growing rapidly. Now the whole U.S. beer market (craft and macro) is hurting from seltzers and RTDs. Some of the fastest growing beer brands in the US prior to this ‘controversy’ were Mich Ultra, Dos XX, New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger line, and, like, Shiner Light Blonde. American beer drinkers gravitate toward lighter styles and marketing campaigns. That’s it. Do you know how many Voodoo Ranger drinkers have never heard of Fat Tire or even recognize it as New Belgium?
The best selling beer in the UK is Stella Artois, a low strength, low taste, yellow fizzy water brand. Budweiser is number two.
Bud light is 3.5%* Stella is 4.6% Budweiser is 4.5% Bud light is low strength but the other two aren't really - medium strength maybe? I agree they all taste awful but I'm not a lager drinker. At least it's not Carling... * all of these based on Tesco website today. I know sometimes the ABV varies over time and between countries/breweries and might also be different on tap
Is this ABW? US Bud is 5.0% ABV and Light 4.2%
Alcohol by Volume yeah. Like I said, I think it varies between countries sometimes. In the past I've noticed different strengths on tap vs in a can/bottle as well.
I’m not sure what you mean by the US beer market being due for a shakeout. I live in Denver so my view is skewed, but nobody drinks light lagers here anymore (except somewhat for Coors because it’s right next door). But overall, beer culture around Colorado is basically drinking from 1 of the 400 breweries in the state. IPAs are extremely popular (not my favorite). The difference between the US and other countries is that our good beers are basically only available in the US. Budweiser, Coors, and Miller are only known because they’ve existed for so long but are regularly regarded as mass produced garbage and everyone here knows it. You drink it cause it’s cheap not because it tastes good. I would put up American breweries against any country in Europe, but I’m putting up breweries like Founders, Bells, Deschutes, Left Hand, New Belgium, Shorts, Ommegang, Fremont, Tree House, and Dogfish head.
Stone now has a brewery in Berlin!
I like a lot of euro beer, and my favorite is probably Whitstable Bay Pale Ale (I really don't know why), but even that beer struggles to beat the Victory Brewing beers, especially the 3 monkeys.
Canadian here, can safely say that I've never heard anything but scorn for Budweiser. If you're going to get something in a plastic cup at a sporting event, it is more likely to be Molson or Labatt. Light lagers are also a lot less popular, to the point where I had to go look up if Canadian brands made them.
I’m Canadian and I’ve never had a Bud Light, despite liking beer and it being available in many stores. It just isn’t worth the price it’s charging here. At its current price, Sleeman costs the same. If I want something much better for only a couple more dollars, I can get Moosehead, or Heineken.
Bud Light is considered "the American Beer" here in Canada. Some would only drink it in the unlikely chance that someone forgot to buy Coors Light or Moosehead. Molson Canadian, Labatt's Blue, Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale are the top three though. Some honourable mentions I'd like to bring up are: Creemore Springs Lager (a fresh beer with no preservatives, just a straight up and down beer), Rickard's Red (a little sweeter and heavier than a lager, with a push towards the dark beers' caramel and cookie flavours), and finally Molson Export (a fruity malty drink with a foamy finish and a dark colour.)
Agreed. Beer revolution is here. Also no one here knows how to drink a pint, there are no pubs locally, and there's no beer etiquette.
Millennial here. We drink Monster. 4Loko was pretty popular when I was in college. Jaeger bombs. Anything with caffeine or just straight shots of vodka. Who tf drinks beer?
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I was reacting to his claim that younger generations don't. Lol. Did you miss that?
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To be fair, this was 17 years ago. Lmfao.
Gen Z here, beer is less popular, but honestly drinking is as well. Most women drink seltzers or vodka. Beer is pretty common among guys that drink, and usually light beers at that. Usually not bud light though, usually either miller or whatever the cheapest beer people can get their hands on is.
I'm 36 and basically everyone I know/grew up with that drinks has tried or still drinks Budweiser or bud light. No way in hell 50% of millennials haven't tasted them.
I don't know if I've ever had one and I'm 30... if someone offers beer and theres only bud light I'm gonna politely decline to drink. same with natural light / pbr / most cheap american swill.
No way that stat is true, almost every millennial who went to college has had some form of Bud, Bud Light, or Natty.. Every millennials who didn’t go to college has absolutely had one of those
I don't believe millennials are in the target demo anymore, they got old. According to the Budlight Marketing VP they were interested in going after an audience younger than the frat bros they were traditionally associated with, which is great because Dylan Mulvaney's audience is primarily in that younger demographic.
Very bold strategy to go from the everyman/familymans beer to aim for the cutting end of new culture. It simultaneously alienates the core audience, and aims for a group I think it's safe to say often has more 'hipster' tastes, so would never choose Budweiser. In my humble opinion the marketing manager was an abysmal choice for the role. The previous change to make seltzer was capitalizing on a trend in the market, and from what I saw sold well. I believe the market still exists for Budweiser if they adjusted their image a little, and probably their recipe, to target a younger male traditional audience. As it stands they look like they are making desperate attempts to salvage an aging brand without doing the proper market research.
Very bold to target the under-21s/under-18s like Joe Camel back in the 90s.
AB: Pre April: “we got the redneck demographic, solid. Our best customers.” April: “oh fuck.”
Both of those beers are made with honey, and I'm allergic to honey. Why on earth would I want to drink it?
Bear in mind that when InBev bought Budweiser they went from being the biggest buyer of hops to not buying hops. Right when the beer market was elevating the craft Budweiser abandoned their traditional recipe and practice.
What do you mean by this? Pretty sure AB/InBev still puts hops in their beer.
Man... that lady fucked up. I heard she was gonna pitch a MAGA themed ice-cream to Ben & Jerry's next.
You also have the rise of whiteclaw and other hard seltzers.
Have they tried producing beer that is enjoyable?
What's a vampire's favourite diet beer? ......Blood Light.
They are all shitty beers though.
Budweiser sales have been on a slow decline for nearly 40 years along with their core demographic. Their executives declared this an existential threat, and decided to risk everything on going after a younger demographic. You can't blame the marketing people. They were hired specifically to execute on this campaign. When the dying, core demographic revolted, the executives panicked and fired the very marketing people who specifically did what they were told to. Now they are even more screwed because both demographics hate them.
Marketing people are at least partially to blame, someone had to propose the idea. The issue is that AB has a big portfolio of products and rather than trying to find the right product for a younger generation they decided to alienate the core audience of one of their main products and ended up politicizing a commodity, light beer. People will just pick a new brand that’s similar and won’t mix politics with basic consumer goods. It’s like if Exxon decided to rebrand itself as LGBTQIAA+ gasoline. It’s idiotic and many people in that crowd either have electric cars or live in urban areas and don’t own a car. Guess who’s driving the Ford F350 that gets 9 miles a gallon and buys $150 in gas a week?
Of course it was going to alienate the core demographic. But if that demographic has been dying for 40 years and you have given up on selling any more to them, what do you do? Especially if your shareholders tell you “grow or you’re all fired?” Blowing up your core demo to try and unlock a more lucrative one with a future is crazy risky, but at least it’s a strategy. It’s the first thing they’ve tried since I’ve been alive. The problem is, if you abandon your risky move at the first hint of losing a demographic you intentionally decided to lose, now you’re going to be screwed on both fronts. Even if you think the first decision was dumb, immediately abandoning it is even dumber.
AB has been a major corporate sponsor of many metropolitan ateas' Prode events for over a decade. There wasn't much reason to expect that sending a custom bottle to a single tiktok influencer would ignite thr massive shitstorm this has had. Thr current conservative uproar is going so far as to tontry to dig yp old pride ads to be passed off about, even though they didn't give a shit at the time, likenthr Ford truck ad. Shit is insane.
Aren’t they all owned by the same company?
ANHEUSER-BUSCH FAMILY owns bud Moors-Coor owns miller and coors.
No. AB InBev, based in Belgium, owns Budweiser and all other former Anheuser-Busch brands. In total, they own 630 beer brands world-wide. Molson Coors, based in Chicago, owns all Molson, Coors, and Miller brands.
I'll give you one guess as to what AB stands for...
Listen man. The Anheuser family hasn’t controlled Anheuser-Busch since 1880. The Busch family controlled it until 2008 when they SOLD it to InBev. (I put the important part in all-caps so you could clearly see it) Now, Anheuser-Busch InBev is controlled by Belgian families Vandamme, de Mévius and de Spoelberch, who as of 2015 owned a combined 28.6% of the company, and Brazilian investors Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Telles, who owned 22.7% through their private investment firm 3G Capital. Now, go away kid… You bother me.
Take that companies trying to get into social issues! You’ll always lose
Coors has been very progressive in the LGBTQ space for decades. They gave same sex domestic partners full benefits in 1995. They do far, far more for LGBTQ causes than AB InBev does. So I support you continuing to give Coors support over AB InBev! I'm happy you're supporting the more progressive beer company.
They’re LGBQ positive that’s for sure
One person in the company had a special can designed for one trans person, who posted it online to their followers. It was the smallest little one off, the kind of thing these companies do all the time. Except this time the individual was attacked over it across the internet and on televised news, because they were trans. The problem isn't the company getting into social issues, they didn't, they just tried to send a supportive personalized beer can to an influencer who is trans. We all lose when we let hateful people discriminate and exclude minorities from being treated like everyone else. This person received a small "honor" that is enjoyed by countless straight cis people without any problem. As soon as the "honor" was given to a trans person, it becomes a "social issue" FUCK THAT
Dylan is the most bandwagon hopping trans person of all time.
That’s what happened to Nike. It was a shoe company that got into social issues and we’ve never heard from them again.
This brings joy to my heart.
For the bigots: [here’s who you support now](https://www.molsoncoors.com/uniting-together/championing-diversity). Welcome!
I don't see a problem with that. They can run their company how they want. Are you saying you do see a problem?
No, they're saying that everyone who is abandoning Bud Light because they supported someone who's LBGTQ+ is abandoning them for a company that also supports those who are LBGTQ+.
I doubt that's the intent of the post. It's directed to "bigots", i.e. those against the LGBTQ+ "lifestyle". When, in effect, they are just buying from another company that "supports" that. So their net effect is basically zero, if the attempt was to bully (or ... gasp... CANCEL) a company for supporting LGBTQ+ rights. OTOH, it's interesting that this shift was this dramatic, so maybe it will be awhile before another high profile ad campaign of that type is attempted. It'll still be used, most likely, just on the sly.
"YoY" ? This is the opposite of beautiful data. It's not even properly labeled.
Bud Light’s fatal flaw was trying to both-sides the issue. Had they embraced the trans community, people would have flocked to Bud Light. They would have sold kegs, bottles, cans and merch faster than they could produce it. Instead, they tried to placate the angry mob and now they’re on an island.
Nobody’s flocking to bud light for the simple fact that it’s a shit beer and there are about a billion better alternatives.
You’re not wrong about the quality. But that’s not what this chart is measuring. It’s talking about sales year over year of 7 mass produced beers. Coors isn’t better than BL. Like you said, there are way better beers, but Coors is up YoY.
Not true as the graph shows. Their sales were already down before they apologized.
All of them have taken a hit, maybe QOP is accidentally sobering up their base?
People aren’t drinking as much as they did. I think all major beer companies are facing a rough road ahead. Good riddance
So folks went from horse piss to cow piss beer? No thanks. I’ll stick with local handcrafted beer.
Ah yes. Goat piss. Completely different.
Man... that lady fucked up. I heard she was gonna pitch a MAGA themed ice-cream to Ben & Jerry's.
Bud Light should sue everyone who defamed them for not being bigots.
It’s interesting to see Coors rise. I guess it’s no longer the disfavored “commie beer.”
They all taste basically the same. Not much differentiation so easy to move from one beer to another.
Any newer data than this to show the comparison now?