How desperate is Budweiser?

It's a pretty depressing litany, and it just keeps on going...

- In last five years, Anheuser-Busch Inbev lost 10% of its volume, two-and-a-half times the rate of the beer category.

- ABI business is down 14% in California, the nation’s largest beer market, in the same 2008-2013 period.

A prophecy in neon?

- ABI draft-beer sales are down 16.7% (in reporting states) in that same time period.
                                                                 Data source: Beer Marketers Insights

These awful trends are not limited to ABI's "old brands," either. For the current year, Budweiser Black Crown (launched two years back on the SuperBowl) is down 57%. And the once-hot "Rita brand" (Margarita-esque alcopops) just began showing a decline, too.

With this much bad news, a marketer might get desperate enough to play it close to the line when it comes to the rules.

One can only imagine the ABI argument to the regulators in support of these not-really-flag-draped packages appearing everywhere this summer.

"Um, all those, er, stars and stripes, really aren't 'relating to the American flag,' they're just, well... stars and stripes. But they are very... patriotic.

Indeed.

And while the King of Beers wraps itself in something that really is ABSOLUTELY NOT the flag of the Colonies, its larger, but similarly sales-challenged sibling, Bud Light, aims to reverse its own decline by invading a midwestern town for a beer party. No... really. 

Desperate? According to a Bud Light spokesman, the brand's “new summer programming and advertising seeks (sic) to do a better job involving young people.” Wait. It hasn't involved them, yet? How much has ABI spent behind this campaign already? And didn't the CEO just tell investors the Bud Light campaign was really "designed for the digital space?" Is the invaded town just a digital mirage?

Rotten sales trends. Flag-waving. CEO as spin-doctor.

Scoundrels?

Whatever.

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