Could Anheuser-Busch heir Billy Busch make Bud Light great again? He thinks he could and if presented the opportunity, he says he’d give it a shot.
Busch appeared on conservative activist Benny Johnson’s podcast where he offered to buy the beer brand.
“I know Anheuser-Busch InBev just sold off eight brands and if they ever decide to sell the Bud Light brand they could sell it to me,” Busch said. “I’d sure as heck try to pull some people together and buy that brand because I think we can make Bud Light great again.”
He went on to offer some advice to the current owners of Bud Light – pay attention to the marketing people you hire. InBev, a Belgian company, purchased the Anheuser-Busch family of beers in 2008. The price tag was $52B.
“I would have first said, ‘Watch out who the marketing people are that you hire.’ They’re these young, woke … who want to push political agendas down your throat coming out of these woke schools,” he said.
“When you are a foreign company and you rely on these woke students that are coming out of these local colleges to do your advertising for you,” he surmised, “you’re making a big mistake.”
This is the lesson to take from the Bud Light fiasco. Marketing is everything. Marketing reflects whether or not a company knows its customer base. In this case, Bud Light lost its way. A youngish marketing executive thought it would be a good idea to incorporate social media influencers in a new marketing campaign for Bud Light that would appeal to a broader audience, like the LGBTQ, etc. people. The exec chose a collaboration with a transgender activist influencer and the rest is history. Bud Light is no longer the most popular beer in America.
Talk about a corporate nightmare.
Busch had the same message in an interview on Newsmax. He can make Bud Light great again.
Busch voiced his perspective during an interview on Newsmax TV’s ‘Rob Schmitt Tonight,’ where he conveyed his desire to help the beer company recover from its recent challenges.”
Reflecting on the current situation, Busch remarked, “They’re gonna have to do something drastic in order to change the tide that’s rolling with them right now.”
He asserted, “I think I could make Bud Light great again, to tell you the truth.”
Is Billy Busch on a charm offensive here? Or, is he just goofing around? From what I’ve seen, he’s kind of a character. But, I also think he’s a conservative-leaning kind of person. He’s a big family man with his wife and their seven children. The family participated in a reality television show in 2020 and I watched the first episode because I didn’t know anything about him. They seemed as normal as a billionaire family can be in the American Midwest. The family lives on a 700-acre farm in the St. Louis area.
Busch delivered the message again to Outkick’s Tomi Lahren.
“If they don’t want that brand any longer, sell it back to the Busch family,” Busch told Outkick host Tomi Lahren. “Sell it to me. I’ll be the first in line to buy that brand back from you, and we’ll make that brand great again.”
While appearing on Tomi Lahren is Fearless, Busch explained how disheartening it has been to watch the beer brand, which was so much a part of his childhood, lose its legacy of valuing its customers and employees.
“That culture is completely gone now,” Busch said. “They knew who their drinkers were. … Even my dad at 89 years old, 90 years old, he was still going to the bars selling Budweiser back in those days.”
“We’ve always cared very, very much about the people in America. What made this company great was America, of course,” he continued.
That is what I was thinking. He’s obviously a family man and it must be hard watching your family’s legacy get torched as it has during the Bud Light debacle. He’s obviously proud of what his family accomplished through the years with Anheuser-Busch. Sounds like he’s a man on a mission and ready for a new challenge.
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