Bud Light’s CEO got one surprising suggestion that sent him into a fit of rage
Bud Light’s CEO is scrambling to try and save the beer’s sinking brand.
He’s trying to make major changes to lure back angry beer drinkers.
And Bud Light’s CEO got one surprising suggestion that sent him into a fit of rage. Bud Light is being pummeled by the boycott that started after the brand’s partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Sales are down nearly 30% year-over-year and Bud Light was toppled as the best-selling beer in the country by Modelo Especial after decades on top.
Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth has tried to avoid the woke controversy and maintain a sunny outlook about the backlash in public.
The company announced that it was laying off hundreds of marketing and corporate jobs, two percent of the company’s workforce, after months of plummeting sales. Whitworth said the decision to lay off workers wasn’t made lightly but was about repositioning the company for future success.
“While we never take these decisions lightly, we want to ensure that our organization continues to be set for future long-term success,” Whitworth said in a statement. “These corporate structure changes will enable our teams to focus on what we do best—brewing great beer for everyone.”
Former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks has been one of his former company’s biggest critics over its botched response to the woke controversy.
He said that the only layoff made by the company should have been Whitworth during an interview with Fox Business.
“My feeling is they would’ve been set up for more success if they actually laid off one person, which is their CEO,” Frericks said. Frericks served as Anheuser-Busch’s president of operations before leaving to start his own asset management company.
“They said they’re trying to set this business up for future long-term success, but there’s no future at this company with the current CEO in place,” Frericks continued. “The CEO is accountable for the results of the organization, and the results of the last four months have been terrible.”
Whitworth has refused to apologize to angry former customers for the Mulvaney partnership and put out mealymouthed public statements about it.
“You still have sales down 30% on their top brands,” Frericks said. “Billions of dollars of shareholder value have been razed, and it’s all due to the decisions made by the top leaders of the company.”
Frericks said that Whitworth is accountable for the disaster that’s unfolded under his watch. “Every single CEO, they have a fiduciary obligation to their shareholders, not to these stakeholders in the organization that are pushing different agendas, activist agendas, political agendas,” Frericks explained. “If you’re the CEO of a company, you’re the one who’s accountable for the results at the end of the day.”
He said that the company began prioritizing left-wing politics when he left in 2011.
Frericks added that he is still “shocked” that Anheuser-Busch hasn’t done more to stop the damage from the backlash, and predicted that “more pain” is coming for the company.
Anheuser-Busch will never be able to save its collapsing brand until it addresses the failed leadership that created the crisis.
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