Anheuser-Busch made an egregious error by entering into a partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.
The company has since tried to back-peddle, but their efforts have fallen on deaf ears.
Now, Anheuser-Busch just took a hit from this financial institution that proves their troubles are far from over.
Anheuser-Busch is struggling to recover its brand image following the Dylan Mulvaney controversy
Anheuser-Busch prompted a nationwide boycott of one of their most popular beers, Bud Light, following a partnership with trans-influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The company, which is influenced by woke Environmental Social Governance (ESG) standards, took over a month to disavow the campaign.
In a letter to retailers sent out at the beginning of May, the company told its partners that the move was “not a campaign” and claimed that their ad agency approved it “without management awareness.” They further blamed the boycott on so-called misinformation that was spreading on social media.
Many former executives at Anheuser-Busch slammed the company for the obvious sponsorship of Dylan Mulvaney and the transgender ideology. The former Vice President of Brand Marketing said they should have known their “target audience is going to have a real issue with this.”
Sales have continued to fall for Anheuser-Busch, but now a major bank is changing its categorization of the company’s stock.
HSBC analyst downgrades Anheuser-Busch stock, citing brand’s “cultural transformation”
An analyst for HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world, has issued a signal that could be detrimental to Anheuser-Busch. Carlos Laboy, who manages the global beverage industry, said that it’s time to move the company’s stock from “buy” to “hold.”
Despite potential support on the global stage, he believes people in the United States don’t like the brand’s “cultural transformation.” He said that there are “many questions” about “the way this Bud Light crisis came about,” particularly the “management’s response” amid a “loss of unprecedented volume and brand relevance.”
The announcement by Laboy to downgrade the stock was made on Wednesday, and by Friday the company had lost over $4 billion in revenue. The stock price was at a year-long high at the end of March, but has since dropped by nearly 10%.
Laboy said that the company needed to be more open with its shareholders if they hoped to recover.
Leadership at AB-Inbev in America “underestimated” the fallout and it’s “deeper” than it looks
Alongside his announcement, Laboy claimed that the company isn’t being honest with shareholders or retail partners. He believes they are trying to contain the public relations nightmare, but in reality the company is facing problems that are “deeper” than it cares to admit.
AB-Inbev, the parent company of Budweiser, saw record numbers this year in the first quarter. Their current year-to-date sales are still up by 5.7 percent, but these increases are quickly getting erased with the second quarter down by 4.8 percent.
Laboy wanted to know why “US leadership underestimated the risk of pushback given the recent experience of other firms,” as well as whether or not the company was “hiring the best people to grow the brand and gauge risk.”
The company is failing to live up to its “iconic American ideas,” he said, before citing their efforts to “invite new consumers” by “alienating” the existing base as proof.
Deplorable Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
