AB InBev Reconsiders: Mistakes Were Made

No one could have seen this coming:

More than half of the thousands of people Bud Light Seltzer surveyed incorrectly believe that the alcoholic seltzer contains beer, which is a self-admitted problem for the three year-old brand.

Well, maybe not no one:

This makes no sense. Budweiser is a beer. Light is an adjective describing what kind of beer. Seltzer is … not beer. “Bud Light Seltzer” is like selling “Smoked Gouda Folding Chairs.”

But this is only act one in AB InBev’s current drama.

Act Two
ABI decided to harness the power of the Bud Light brand, one of the most powerful in beer, to compete with industry leading seltzers White Claw and Truly. Alas:

White Claw remains the top-selling brand, Truly is in second and Bud Light Seltzer is in third place, according to data from IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm. Sales of Bud Light Seltzer have fallen about 24% last year, the firm said, which is worse than the seltzer category on average, which fell nearly 15%.

Act Three
AB InBev is a diversified corporation. They invested heavily in craft breweries beginning a dozen years ago as a hedge against Bud Light slippage. Let’s check in with that plan.

A week after Ohio’s Platform Beer Co. ceased operations and laid off its staff, other craft breweries under the Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI) umbrella also laid off an unknown number of sales and marketing employee… In 2022, ABI’s craft portfolio dollar sales in chain retail fell -3.2% versus the year prior. As was the case for many brands, volume losses were worse, down -7.4% in 2022 are are down -15.6% since an all-time high in 2020. (Kate Bernot, Good Beer Hunting)

Craft is falling right now, so ABI’s performance isn’t especially bad compared to the segment. After $730 million in investments in craft beer, however, “not worse than average” is probably not the benchmark they had in mind.

Act Four
Fortunately, these dalliances haven’t distracted ABI from job one: maintaining dominance in the American beer market, as they have done for decades. Umm:

It’s not a matter of if but when Modelo Especial will become the nation’s No. 1 beer brand in dollar sales, Constellation Brands Beer Division president Jim Sabia told wholesalers Tuesday during the company’s Gold Network Summit in Las Vegas. (Jessica Infante, Brewbound)

Curtain.