CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans appeared on Wednesday Morning’s CNN News Central with anchor John Berman to attempt to explain Modelo’s takeover as the most popular beer company in America, a title which had previously been held by Bud Light. Romans tried to pin the cause for this as being primarily “flat-out changing tastes” and “clever advertising” on Modelo’s part, rather than unified rejection their sponsorship of trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Romans began by detailing the exact percentages of sales of both Modelo and Bud Light in this past month, with 8.4 percent of beer sales in America being from Modelo, and only 7.3 percent from Bud Light. She went on to explain how the “clever advertising promotion campaign” from Modelo, and the influence of Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday, being in May, caused the increase in sales from this Mexican beer company.
She also attributed this increase in Modelo sales to “changing tastes” in a “growing affinity for Mexican beer and spirits” that has apparently been tracked over the past few months.
She then listed off some more statistics that illustrated this drastic shift in beer sales in America:
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.
None of what Romans blamed the most for the shift had to do with the real main reason why Bud Light sales had reduced lately, that being their sponsorship with Mulvaney. When she did mention this sponsorship, however, she brushed it off as an overreaction from conservatives for a minor event:
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.
Romans continued to downplay the importance of the sponsorship by re-emphasizing the “changing tastes” for beer, this time citing the “declining tastes for light beer in particular” as the culprit for the shift, although not citing any evidence for it.
Finally, Romans called the Mulvaney sponsorship a “social media fail, quite frankly,” in an effort to place blame on anything but the true culprit. She described “corporate directors” who were “finding a lot of fault” with how Bud Light “managed and behaved in the situation, from a corporate and PR standpoint.”
She was clearly claiming here that the real fail for Bud Light was in their treatment of the situation, rather than in their creation of the situation itself, which was the true main disincentive for many people to purchase the beer.
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Transcript of the segment below (click Expand):
CNN News Central
06/14/23
10:31 AM
JOHN BERMAN: 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 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, here with the details. Romans.
CHRISTINE ROMANS: 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.
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.
BERMAN: Christine Romans, thank you very much for that.
