Anheuser-Busch stock receives an upgrade from "hold" to "buy" from Deutsche Bank. Bud Light releases a new ad to win back customers following the company's controversy for partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The Yahoo Finance Live team takes a look at the ad and Bud Light's sales.
Video Transcript
- I had my eyes on Bud Light today and Anheuser-Busch as a whole. Actually, a call coming out that people think that it is time to buy Bud Light, guys. And buy Anheuser-Busch. Basically saying-- Deutsche Bank coming out and saying that sales have hit as low as they're going to drop.
Sales have been falling for over 20% now for nine straight weeks. Essentially the take being that Bud Light is actually not-- in America, we think of it as the biggest beer, right, because it was the biggest beer up until last week when Modelo passed it.
But Deutsche Bank sort of laying out the case that essentially, Bud Light is not actually as big of a business in Anheuser-Busch's overall business as you might think. North American sales only 30% of all of Anheuser-Busch's sales worldwide, pras. It seems like maybe Bud Light isn't as big of an issue when you talk about the entire company, right.
- I know you wrote about this, I'm curious. The Mulvaney thing, sort of accelerated downturn that's already happening with Bud Light, and not so extreme but it was already happening that Bud Light was losing sales to begin with, I had no idea how big the Anheuser-Busch footprint was. Not only in America, but internationally.
The group of Modelo, internationally, also brands like Hoegaarden and Stella Artois here, I mean, just a lot of big beer brands. Do you really need Bud Light? Do you really need Budweiser in this world, when you have such growth, high-potential in craft brews and also medium brews?
- Ali, I'll feed into you because I'm curious what you think. I mean, anecdotally, that's what I've heard from friends, from this whole thing. I think people, when I go out to a bar now, some people are drinking Bud Light less. But I've heard people say that they're drinking like craft beer.
Like, I was home, back in Boston, last week and I had friends that never drink Sam Adams telling me about, have you tried Sam Adams beer? And I was like, yes.
- No way. In Boston?
- Yeah, true, because I was just like, oh, I hadn't had that Sam Adams beer. But people-- not literally Sam Adams Boston lager, but different brews that they have, and sort of shopping more for beer. And I thought that that was interesting, that maybe it's just making people think, oh, I don't always have to drink Bud Light when I go to the bar because people aren't ordering it for everyone, like it used to be.
- Right. Maybe consumer preferences are changing. We've seen a surge in canned cocktails, right, seltzers, AB InBev has leaned into the seltzer craze as well. You know, Deutsche Bank did say that stores, they're still stocking their fridges with Bud Light. So if there's a shift in consumer sentiment, if people want to go back to Bud Light, if this is purely just related to the controversy, then that could have a rebound in sales, potentially.
And I know-- they've released a new ad.
- Yeah, they're trying to make that pitch. Let's play the ad right now. I think we have the ad ready. We can take a look at the quick pitch, and we'll see if we think it's going to work.
- Nice.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Good times. These are the good times. Leave your cares behind. These are the good times.
- I love it.
- Not good times for the guy that dropped his phone in the lake.
- No.
- But I do think-- I don't know, it's fun, right?
- I think it was fun. It's summer, you want to grab a beer. Bud Light.
- It seems like consensus on the street right now, among analysts, is they're never going to get back the full-- so they're down about 25% on average, weekly, right now. They're just never going to get back to being even, and that's essentially OK, is what it seems like. And I think that that's sort of the consensus. And that's kind of my take at this point too.
I think a lot of people are just experiencing other beers, right. To get that full 25% back from playing an ad that says have a good time and drink Bud Light over the summer, like, I don't really think you can fully unwind this, right.
- Yeah, I mean, and they have their own, like you said, other canned goods. I also like a good kind of hard seltzer. I think they have the Biv and Wonder or-- Biv and Wonder? Do you know what it is, Collin? Bev and Wonder?
- I'm drinking IPAs, Pras. I'm not drinking seltzers.
- I do enjoy the hard seltzer. I think it's like my beer replacement. I think that they're just going to replace Bud Light drinking with something else. I don't think it's people who are railing against Dylan Mulvaney are going to rail against a whole entire AB InBev Empire. They probably don't even know what AB InBev owns, so we'll see about that.
