Investors in Target, Bud Light Have Lost Eye-Popping Amount of Money as Result of Epic Marketing Failures
Investors who have money in Bud Light and Target have lost their shirts over the last few months as regular Americans everywhere have finally gotten sick and tired of these companies and their obsession with pushing radical left-wing ideologies on consumers.
The woke corporate world is reeling from the twin financial disasters being suffered by Bud Light and Target as the pair have lost a combined $28 billion, according to Fox News.
In the case of Bud Light, it seems obvious that the brand was way too dismissive of its core customer base and took it for granted during its attempt to reach out to new, woke potential customers.
Indeed, one of its executives even insisted that it was time for Bud Light to get past the “fratty” customers who made it the top U.S. beer brand and to begin reaching out to a more woke — and younger — clientele.
Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, made the huge mistake of taking a slap at her own customers in the months before the controversy began by saying, “Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor.”
The criticism seemed tailor-made to upset longtime customers who might resent being called “fratty” and “out-of-touch.” But her comments didn’t really cause much of a ripple until she approved an effort to partner with transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney by having her PR department send Mulvaney some personalized beer cans with the influencer’s face on them.
The move sparked outrage in customers who until then had thought of Bud Light as an all-American-styled beer, not a woke brand. Then, when Heinerscheid’s “fratty” comment resurfaced, it incensed customers enough to launch one of the most serious boycotts coming from the right in recent memory.
Heinerscheid even ended up being “put on leave” as the fiasco played out, and the company rushed out “patriotic” commercials in hopes of getting past the transgender mess quickly.
All the behind-the-scenes moves, though, have not staunched the bleeding for Bud Light as it loses billions in market share and is forced to buy back its own expired product because people are leaving the beer sitting on shelves past expiration dates.
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As Fox noted, the mess Bud Light got itself into prompted HSBC analyst Carlos Laboy to cut the stock to a hold rating and question the competence of the beer brand’s leadership.
“Why did its US leadership underestimate the risk of pushback given the recent experience of other firms? Is A-B hiring the best people to grow the brands and gauge risk? If Budweiser and Bud Light are iconic American ideas that have long brought consumers together, why did these marketers fail to invite new consumers without alienating the core base of the firm’s largest brand? These questions are not trivial to the crisis and say a lot about the state of A-B’s marketing culture,” Laboy wrote.
Target has also found itself on the losing end of a boycott movement after the company came under fire for its transgender “tuck-friendly,” female-style swimsuits and its partnership with a company and its designer who actually espouses Satanism.
While Bud Light’s customers likely reacted because most were unaware that the beer brand had a history of supporting the radical LGBT agenda, no one is under any illusion that Target was any sort of all-American brand, as it is well known that the retailer has for more than a decade pumped millions into the radical gay movement that seeks to groom our children.
It seems likely that Target quickly found itself in the midst of a boycott and losing billions because the boycott of Bud Light was so successful, not to mention that over the last several years conservatives are finally warming to castigate the transgender movement for targeting our children.
Regardless, Fox News noted that the move was not a great one for Target’s bottom line.
“The merchandising move shaved more than $9 billion off the retailer’s market value since mid-week last week with shares down over 12.6%, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data Group. Over the same time frame, the S&P 500 is little changed,” Fox noted.
Timothy Calkins, associate chair of the marketing department at Northwestern Kellogg, told Fox that he thinks Target and every other corporation will continue supporting the extreme LGBT movement despite the twin boycotts going on now.
“I believe Target is still very much going to support Pride. And I think we’ll see lots of organizations do that because that is an issue that has broad support across the country and that isn’t as controversial as transgender issues,” Calkins said.
These giant corporations absolutely expect you all to get tired of the boycott and to come right back to buying their products in due time. And they feel they are too big to fail and can withstand a few lost dollars for a few weeks, so as things stand now, they won’t likely pare back their donations to extremist groups.
So, Calkins is likely correct. Unless, that is, the boycotts of Target and Bud Light continue and become a cultural phenomenon preventing the brands from rebounding later on. And, also, unless conservatives continue to expand their boycotts to other brands — perhaps smaller brands that will really feel the pain.
Both Bud Light and Target are suffering. Conservatives who are tired of these corporations shoving extremist, left-wing, anti-child and anti-American politics down everyone’s throats have the power to make these companies pay dearly for their needless political activism. If we keep the faith and refuse to patronize these companies, we may finally start to see them cutting off the billions that left-wing groups have been receiving from the business sector.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
