In this episode of “THIS… Is CNN… The Most Trusted Name in News”…
Welp, there’s a pair. CNN, of all “news” outlets, is desperately attempting to spin the dethroning of Bud Light from its position as America’s top-selling beer. And by “desperate,” I mean desperate.
A CNN genius actually blamed “flat-out changing tastes” in beer and “clever advertising” by Mexico’s Modelo Especial, which recently took over the top spot.
Did I mention that the CNN clown also blamed a “growing affinity for Mexican beer and spirits” while summarily dismissing the brutally effective boycott over Bud Light’s disastrous decision to hook up with “transgender” Dylan Mulvaney, a creepy 26-year-old man who ridiculously pretends he’s a teenage girl?
First of all, CNN brew meisters, people don’t drink any light beer for an exquisite taste; they drink light beer because light beer has fewer calories, seemingly convincing themselves that light beer is diet beer, or perhaps “healthier.”
This is one of the two key reasons the ongoing boycott against Bud Light has been so devastatingly successful: similar light beer brands are readily available. Second, the disastrous financial consequences to parent company A-B Inbev have led to a market cap devaluation of roughly 30 percent.
Meanwhile, back at The Most Trusted Name in News(TM), as reported by NewsBusters, CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans appeared on Wednesday Morning’s CNN News Central with anchor John Berman to attempt to explain away Modelo’s takeover as the new most popular beer in America. Spoiler: comedy gold, CNN-style.
The ever-dour Berman kicked off the festivities:
So this morning, after two decades, a new top-selling beer in the U.S. Mexican Lager Modelo Especial was the top-selling beer last month, overthrowing Bud Light.
There are a couple [of] things at play here, including flat-out changing tastes, but also the backlash from the social media post by transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans, [is] here with the details.
Romans went full-on clown world, right out of the chute (emphasis mine):
Hi there, John. Well, yeah, Modelo prevails, pardon the pun, over the king of beers, dethroned here: Bud Light, in the most recent month. Bud Light’s share of the market was less than Modelo. So it lost its top standing there. 8.4 percent of–of beer sales in May belong to Modelo, only 7.3 percent, Bud Light.
So, that is a big shift. Now, you’re right, there’s some changing tastes happening and also this is the month of May. There’s Cinco de Mayo, there’s also a really clever advertising promotion campaign from Modelo. And changing tastes. Analysts tell us that already there’s been an affinity, growing affinity for Mexican beer and spirits for some time now. So that’s sort of a tipping point that you’re seeing here.
Stop the tape. Prior to its epic fall, Bud Light has been the top-selling beer in America since 2001. By my count, that’s 22 Cinco de Mayos in a row. Moreover, the so-called growing affinity for Mexican beer and spirits hardly includes swill –er — light beer.
Romans partially recovered, apparently deciding she didn’t want to look as foolish as Berman.
When you look at overall sales though, sales for Bud Light down more than 24 percent in the month. That is kind of a staggering number here. And for Modelo, sales up 12.2 percent.
So these numbers are telling a story. You mentioned the transgender influencer who had one can, one customized can of Bud Light, and did an Instagram post, and conservative media and conservative social media went on a very full, full, forceful boycott of–of the beer, and so that is one other kind of factor here at play.
So you have two things happening. You’ve got changing tastes, you’ve got several months, actually years, of declining tastes for light beer in particular, and then you have this social media fail, quite frankly, from–from Bud Light.
It made a lot of corporate directors are watching what Bud Light did in this whole situation, and finding a lot of fault with how–how it managed and behaved in the situation, from a corporate and PR standpoint.
Regarding the single “customized can,” Anheuser-Busch desperately tried to make the same silly argument shortly after the impact of the boycott began to sink in:
This was one single can given to one social media influencer. It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement.
#ProTip for Anheuser-Busch and CNN: The number of Mulvaney cans — one or one million — was irrelevant. A-B spent decades and untold millions of dollars building brand loyalty for Bud Light, only to flush it down the toilet (along with its swill) in an ill-advised attempt to pander to the LGBTQ community — via a silly misguided dude awkwardly masquerading as an equally silly teenage girl.
Anyway, Berman responded to Romans with his usual professional journalistic and incisive style, questioning her take. Just kidding; Berman rolled over like a boss:
Christine Romans, thank you very much for that.
Hell, on second thought, Berman probably meant exactly that.
“Thank you for joining me in at least trying to blame everything on the planet for Bud Light’s disastrous fall and dismissing the only reason — the disastrous effect of the most effective boycott in history against a company’s product because of pandering left-wing nonsense.”
Yup, this is CNN, alright. Now, back to you, reality.