Bud Light offers rebate of up to $15 on products ahead of July 4th weekend
Bud Light is offering a rebate of up to $15 on a 15-pack or larger ahead of the July 4th weekend. The brand's sales have taken a hit from a boycott stemming from its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Beer sales as a whole have also been down compared to ready-to-drink cocktails. Yahoo Finance Live takes a look the numbers.
Video transcript
JOSH SCHAFER: A story I'm watching, a different story, but a fun one we've been following is these Bud Light sales, and it's been interesting to see what's happening with it. But more importantly, as we head to the 4th of July, you might be able to get free Bud Light, more or less. So they're running a promotion that if you spend-- if you buy a $15 rack of Bud Light, you can see right there, you get a $15 rebate back. Now you have to go online to file the rebate. So of course, don't forget to do that, which a lot of people probably won't do--
ALEXANDRA CANAL: That's the worst. That's the worst. When you have to go online and file that, it just doesn't happen. At least--
JOSH SCHAFER: Interesting as we've been tracking, of course, Bud Light sales down about 30% over the past week compared to last year. They've been in that 25% to 30% range for a while now, trying to reinvigorate maybe sales growth with this deal. I don't know. You guys buying it?
SEANA SMITH: I mean, I don't think it's going to harm the company at all. Obviously, I think they're also banking on a lot of people, like Allie, what you were just alluding to there, not submitting their rebates. So they're going to get the full-- what they charge here for their Bud Lights, especially right now, because it is so critical for the company because sales have dropped so significantly. But they need to do something to turn things around, right?
So this new marketing campaign that they are launching for the next several weeks, I think is a smart move. I think a lot of people that maybe boycotted Bud Light for just because it was a trending thing, it was a trending topic, I think some of those people are going to come back to Bud Light.
But that's only part of the problem, right? Because then you also have the fact that beer sales across the board are slowing down, and Evercore was out with an interesting note on that, just saying that it is tough right now when you stack that up to some of those ready-to-drink alternatives out there that are very popular, especially with the younger generation.
JOSH SCHAFER: It was interesting to look there. So when you take-- expand beyond Bud Light and you think about A/B InBev, right, and their overall seltzer sales, decline year over year from 2020 to 2021 to 2022 to this year. And right there, you can see it compared to High Noon, which I would argue is one of the more popular ready-to-drink cocktails [INAUDIBLE].
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Well, that leads the category for sure.
JOSH SCHAFER: Yeah, and so like you can see High Noon sort of ticking up there, Allie. I don't know. That was something that stuck out to me when you think about beyond beer, what AB InBev can do to maybe help itself out here.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: And in this note, one thing that did stick out to me as well is the fact that hard seltzer just continuing that fizzle. And truly, is Truly having a problem? No pun intended. I mean, that's down 15 basis points sequentially. 555 basis points year over year. It's the worst in the seltzer category, worse than Bud Light Seltzer, which I think you know is bad, because I'm going out, I'm never reaching for a Bud Light Seltzer. I would get Truly--
JOSH SCHAFER: Bud Light Seltzer is easily the worst seltzer.
SEANA SMITH: But I wonder why.
JOSH SCHAFER: Easily the worst tasting seltzer.
SEANA SMITH: You guys are younger than me. You're a lot cooler than me. Why hasn't, do you think, seltzer caught on, and why was it just a fad? Because there was so much excitement about it. And I think it's easy--
JOSH SCHAFER: When's the last time you had one?
SEANA SMITH: I mean, not that long ago, to be honest.
JOSH SCHAFER: The malt liquor flavor in some of these seltzers are just not good.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: Yes, I think that's what it was. And then you had High Noon come in, and it wasn't this malt liquor. It was the same calorie benefits, right? It was a healthy alternative. And I think, at least for my friends, they gravitated towards High Noon over the White Claw, even though White Claw is still doing not too bad. I think they're only down 80 basis points year over year. But they're up sequentially. So still, though, a decline in the segment overall.
JOSH SCHAFER: People wanted something that wasn't beer, right? I think that was obvious. But then when you get into the next level of it, people like the flavor of something that's a vodka soda and maybe not as over fruit forward. I think some of the ready-to-drink like a White Claw or a Truly are very fruit forward if you had some of those and, like, well, sugary. But what do you guys drink on 4th of July? Quick, what do we got?
SEANA SMITH: I don't know.
JOSH SCHAFER: Out of this category. [INAUDIBLE]
SEANA SMITH: [INAUDIBLE] any drink right now, so I'm not going to discriminate.
JOSH SCHAFER: I'm going with that Bud Light deal, too. That's not bad.
ALEXANDRA CANAL: I always love a Corona, and I love a High Noon, and I love a good vodka soda, so.
SEANA SMITH: Exactly, everything.
