Bill Gates has made a $96 million move to pump some life into the controversial stock of the parent company to Bud Light.
After the controversial Dylan Mulvaney commercial/partnership, and subsequent boycott, Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch, saw a sharp decline in sales which led to hundreds of employees being laid off.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation purchased 1.7 million shares of Anheuser-Busch last quarter but has already gone down 2% since that purchase.
For some reason Bill Gates is confident in the stock but former executive, Anson Frericks with the brand Anheuser-Busch seems to think the move was a “mistake”.
Frericks says that, “For the company’s sake, they’d probably be better off [with] maybe somebody who is more of, kind of the everyman type of person, maybe like a Rob Gronkowski or somebody like that was investing into Anheuser-Busch, not necessarily somebody like Bill Gates. That doesn’t really resonate with sort of that common man that everyday Bud Light beer drinker,” he said.
The brand has been targeting sports, backyard BBQ’s, and burly men in new ad campaigns to try and seek favor with customers again.
Frericks thinks the brand is all over the place with no focus on who they’re serving at this point: “come out and say who they’re going to be focused on, who they’re going to be serving moving forward.”
Bud Light lost its reign as the nation’s top-selling beer when transgender Dylan Mulvany appeared in an ad for the beer. The masses quickly lost it, with Kid Rock leading the charge for a boycott, shooting at Bud Light cans in a viral video that made the rounds during the height of the controversy.
As for Bill Gates investment, perhaps he just likes a challenge?
