Bud Light, Your Reputation Is a Mess—and There’s No Easy Fix

Screw-ups happen, of course. Clearly, you started out with the best of intentions. But those good intentions cost you 8% of your share price. Companies that venture into the culture wars always face the risk of alienating someone. That’s what happened here, and it wasn’t necessarily a problem. The problem was that you apparently didn’t recognize the impact your actions could have and didn’t have a plan to deal with potential fallout.   

Now your reputation is in a nosedive. There’s no easy fix here, least of all a carefully worded statement. We’re decades past the time when a business can take a half-hearted stand and then walk away from it. 

But let’s slice deeper. For starters, let’s ask what you as the No. 1 brand in your market have done right throughout this fiasco. Unfortunately, the answer—with all due respect and no offense intended—is almost nothing. 

OK, you said you’ll give $500 bonuses to front-line employees—delivery truck drivers, sales reps and merchandisers—vulnerable to angry consumers. Kudos. But much too little, too late. 

What you’ve done wrong, on the other hand, makes for a long list. We’ll do a quick rundown here. Then I’ll touch on what I consider by far your biggest blunder. And lay out my advice on how to redeem yourselves.  

First, you left your designated partner, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, hanging out to dry. You’ve run campaigns supporting LGBT rights before. It makes marketing sense to select Mulvaney to capitalize on her massive social media following and, as a byproduct, demonstrate your commitment to inclusivity, particularly to the transgender community. But no sooner had Mulvaney posted a video to Instagram promoting your beer on your behalf than she came under withering attack.  

You could have expressed your support for Mulvaney, your sympathy for the ordeal, your outrage at her digital assailants. But no. You awkwardly tried to diminish the relationship. Your brand went dark on social media. No such messages materialized. 

Next, comments surfaced from an earlier interview in which your vice president of marketing described your past efforts as “out of touch” and “fratty,” and that your brand—presumably the top beer in the country—was somehow in decline. Taken alone, this is hardly an attitude toward your core audience that would win hearts and minds.  

Then, as consumer backlash morphed into a product boycott and bomb threats were made at some of your plants, you blew your opportunity to counter it. Instead, your CEO backtracked, issuing a statement saying, “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.” This wishy-washy verbiage isn’t likely to unite anyone. You tried to distance yourself from an issue that you presumably embraced, and then, when you got pushback, you said you would focus your marketing on sports and music. That feels like surrender.   

Your every gaffe compounded the previous one, as if you were trying to swim out of quicksand. In seeking to straddle a divisive issue in a society already highly polarized, you succeeded in alienating people on both sides. The way this is going, Americans may find that one of the few things uniting them is their annoyance with Bud Light. 

Here’s the rub. None of this needed to happen. You could have prevented all of it. And that’s because contrary to popular opinion, your problem started not after that Instagram video unleashed an uproar, but well before. The oversight originated at the very moment you conceived this marketing strategy. 

Someone in the room could have—and should have—understood at the outset that this undertaking would be controversial. Recognized the potential to inflame your key customer base and anticipated the blowback. Connected the dots between your project and your company’s core values clearly to customers. Put a plan in place for responding robustly and responsibly, a plan that entails expressing your commitment to the issue and standing behind your partner, your employees, and your actions.  

Yes, that’s a lot of could-have and should-have. But make no mistake: this was a failure of management, nothing more and nothing less. If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Consumers have no appetite for hypocrisy.  

In an ideal scenario, you would have decided whether this was an issue you as a company wanted to be out front on. And you would have come right out early on saying something like, “Hey, folks, this is who we are as a company. This is what we believe our brand is supposed to be all about. We’re just trying to be the best citizens we can be.” But not nearly enough of that happened. And that’s the key reason you were caught unprepared, backed yourselves into a corner and suffered the consequences. 

But by no means is it too late to salvage an asset you took decades to gain and only about 45 seconds to lose, namely a solid reputation. So, let’s talk recommendations.  

First, stop talking. You’ve said more than enough for the moment, and if you keep going, you might say something else that digs your hole even deeper. 

Second, accept the reality that you’re in for a long, slow recovery. Again—because it bears repeating—there is no quick fix here.  

Third, take a cold, hard look at what type of company you want to be. Ask yourselves who are you as a brand and what do you stand for. What, in short, is your brand identity in the year 2023?  

Fourth, develop a marketing campaign that will quench the public thirst for justice—oh, and also sell beer. That push to regain your footing should answer all lingering questions and even those yet to come. It should serve as a manifesto of sorts, a declaration of principles, a this-we-believe. Show why you deserve a second chance to be trusted. Make clear that whatever stand you take, you’ll stick with it. Above all, find what has been missing here: your voice.  

Then let us hear from you. We’ll be listening. 

Guest commentaries like this one are written by authors outside the Barron’s and MarketWatch newsroom. They reflect the perspective and opinions of the authors. Submit commentary proposals and other feedback to ideas@barrons.com.