Cheaper Than Water? Retailers Try to Unload Bud Light.
With the summer sales season well underway — the four months between May and August make up as much as 40 percent of annual beer sales — the question swirling around Bud Light is whether the slump is temporary or the new normal.
“Here we are about 10 weeks into it, and we’re still seeing double-digit declines in volumes nationally,” said Bump Williams, who runs the consulting firm that bears his name. “This is no longer an anomaly. This is a trend of concern.”
Indeed, most larger beer distributors or wholesalers — middlemen who buy brands from brewers like Anheuser-Busch and Molson Coors and then sell them to stores, restaurants and bars — believe the fallout will last more than six months, according to a survey released this month by the Wall Street investment bank Jefferies. A third of distributors believe the impact on Bud Light will be permanent.
Mr. Wagner said Anheuser-Busch had made a mistake when its marketing broke what he called “bar rules.” That means “no politics, no religion.” He noted that Glenn Miller’s had never allowed local politicians to put up signs in or around the store so as not to alienate customers.
When asked how long he thought the sales declines would linger, Mr. Wagner shrugged. “I’ve seen longtime Bud Light customers trying other beers,” he said. “If they find something they like, they may not come back.”
Source: The New York Times
