Dive Brief:
- Bud Light debuted a new ad Monday that voiced the brand's support for equal pay for women. "Bud Light costs the same no matter if you are a dude or a lady," spokesperson Amy Schumer said in the ad.
- The new ad continues a faux political campaign launched during the Super Bowl, the Bud Light Party, featuring actors Schumer and Seth Rogen. The campaign has allowed Bud Light to touch on important social issues of the day through the brand's signature humorous voice.
- Bud Light will donate $1 to Catalyst, an organization supporting gender parity, each time consumers use the hashtag #CheersToEqualPay on social media through the end of June, capped at $150,000. The hashtag gives Bud Light a way to encourage social engagement between consumers and the brand while supporting a cause that matters to its target audience.
Dive Insight:
The gender parity ad is a quick follow-up to Bud Light's recent ad supporting same-sex marriage, which ran earlier this month. A key difference is that the same-sex marriage ad was specifically targeted, running only in New York and California markets. The new equal pay for women ad ran nationally Monday night during 16 primetime TV shows.
Anheuser-Busch InBev distributors, who have given the campaign a "lukewarm response overall," have concerns about potentially alienating core Bud Light drinkers, Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer's Insights, told Ad Age.
Beer brands hope to capitalize on female drinkers in the same way as whiskey brands. Jim Beam has retained its female spokesperson Mila Kunis since 2014, and the percentage of whiskey drinkers who are women has risen in recent years, from 15% in the 1990s to 37% as of late 2014.
Mixed feelings aside, the Bud Light Party campaign hasn't worked to turn around sales yet, with a 4.8% dip in brand sales in the three months ending in May, according to Nielsen data cited in a recent Sanford C. Bernstein report.