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Facing the prospect of the first negative sales year in the 27-year history
of Bud Light, Anheuser-Busch is going for a little less "Drinkability" and a lot
more laughs to reverse a 3% sales slide for the brand in the first half of the
year.
The brewer's largest and most important brand was marketed for decades under the
premise that people drink light beer to have fun, so light-beer ads should be
funny - and the execution was often brilliant. Riding one pop-culture
smash after another, from "Spuds MacKenzie" and "Yes, I Am" to "I Love You, Man"
and "Real Men of Genius," Bud Light grew into the world's best-selling beer, a
brand so big that today it accounts for nearly one in five brews poured in
America.
But as the Bud Light fan base grew older and their more-fickle offspring came of
drinking age, the marketer looked to adopt a not-your-dad's-beer message.
And as rival light brews gained share with consistent, attribute-driven
marketing, Bud Light searched for something to hang its brand hat on. Last
October, it landed on the concept of "Drinkability," a confusing calling card it
has harped on relentlessly since.
Drinkability is a code for not too heavy (a veiled reference to the
slightly-more-bitter Miller Lite) and not too light (a veiled reference to the
slightly-more-watery Coors Light). In an interview, CEO Dave Peacock said
consumer research showed that was the brand's "sweet spot" for consumers, though
the term itself, often derided as resembling M.B.A.-speak, has been on the
Budweiser bottle for decades and often was raised during focus groups.
The push was a marked departure from the focus on sophomoric humour that drove
Bud Light's sales since its 1982 launch, and it also marked a departure from
decades of positive sales trends. According to Information Resources Inc.,
retail sales of Bud Light declined 3% in the first half, and the trend seems to
be accelerating, as sales dropped 7% during the crucial July 4 holiday period.
"The execution just hasn't been great," said veteran beer-industry consultant
Mike Mazzoni, a former A-B executive. "It's not impacting their target
market."
And, in fact, a study by online research firm Zeta Interactive found it might be
hurting it. Zeta's research indicates that since launching the campaign,
Bud Light's total online chatter had both decreased and grown more negative.
"It's starting to become detrimental to them," said Zeta CEO Al DiGuido.
A-B executives counter by saying their own research shows Bud Light dominates
the total share of online chatter about light beers, and they say surveys of
social media show drinkability seeping into conversations about beer.
Now, A-B is dialling down drinkability in coming spots and returning to its
roots. "We're going back to that familiar Bud Light voice," said Mr.
Peacock. "The work will reference drinkability, but it won't be as
drinkability heavy."
Asked if, given the sales declines, he had any regrets about the campaign, Mr.
Peacock said he did not, because now that the heavy-handed explaining of
drinkability is out of the way, the brand can get back to being funny again in
the spots launching later this month.
To be sure, more than marketing is to blame for the iconic brand's predicament.
The weak economy has caused many drinkers of so-called premium beers such as Bud
Light to trade down to cheaper brews. Among its peer light beers, Bud
Light's long-time archrival Miller Lite has seen even steeper volume declines
while the best performing big brand of late, Coors Light, is still growing, but
at a markedly slower rate. What's more, the impact of the economy has been
particularly felt in convenience stores, which rely on lower-income drinkers
than other channels and have traditionally been Bud Light's stronghold.
But most wholesalers and analysts say there's more than just the economy at work
here. Bud Light, more than any other beer brand, was built by image
advertising from agency of record DDB, Chicago, that kept the brand in step with
pop culture. Now, like the Gap or any other mainstream brand sold on
image, it is stumbling a bit as it pitches to the children of its original
loyalists.
The brand's total shipments last year were flat for the second time in four
years, a trend that prompted A-B to get a bit more serious with its drinkability
approach. The other reason a new platform was essential, Mr. Peacock said,
was that many of the brand's 21- to 27-year-old target drinkers grew up watching
their parents drink Bud Light, and generation gaps have historically posed a
problem for big brands. Schlitz, Pabst, Miller High Life and Budweiser are
all examples of huge brands that never recovered from spirals resulting, in
part, from being rejected by younger drinkers. And none of those brands
leaned on image advertising to the same extent of Bud Light.
"We've seen that in this industry again and again," said Mr. Peacock. "We
felt like we had to capture [younger drinkers] with that product attribute."
Early returns, however, haven't been good. Sales are down, and the brand
has gone about four months without fresh creative, one of the longest stretches
in its history, in part because DDB has had a difficult time getting work
through the exhaustive, metric-heavy pre testing demanded by A-B's new
cost-conscious parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev. The process, derided
by two executives familiar with it as a restrictive, "colour-by-numbers"
approach to creative, has been one factor in the new-work drought, Mr. Peacock
acknowledged. But he also said the marketer wanted to "give a little room"
to a summer promotion involving a branded party-cruise sweepstakes, and also to
offshoot Bud Light Lime, which has had summer ads in heavy rotation.
The ads will also be aired in slightly different venues, with more investment in
prime-time, cable and late-night programming, partially at the expense of the
sports programming that dominates A-B's media budget. A-B spent $234
million in measured media for Bud Light last year, according to TNS Media
Intelligence.
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