Anson Frericks: Bud Light’s Fall & Comeback Attempt, Zyn’s DEI Agenda, & Why Big Business Hates You
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How did Anheuser-Busch lose its way?
So, what happened to Anheuser-Busch? Like, what is it? If you don't mind, since you've thought about this probably more than any living person, how exactly did a company, an American company like that, that you felt like had a sense of the country that it served, go off in a direction that was so obviously crazy and self-destructive? Like, how could that happen? Yeah.
You know, Tucker, there's a short story to it, and there's a long story. I mean, I'll give you the short version, and then we can get into the longer version of what happened. Great. But, you know, I mean, the short version is it used to be a great American, you know, company. This was owned by the Bush family. The Bush family had started this thing in the 1850s. You know, this is the same time you had the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers. You didn't have any of those folks still in the, I don't know, 20 years ago, but the Bush family was actually still running Anheuser-Busch 20 years ago, which is crazy. I think they actually have houses right around here, as a matter of fact. I know them. Yeah, you probably know them well.
um and so the short story very nice people very nice i'm not everyone in the family but some of the people it's a big family one of the former presidents great man yeah it's a it's a big family so and long story short i mean the company got so big and at some point it's owned sea world bush gardens you know eight helicopters ten private jets we got a little bit bloated so it got taken over by this uh belgian company european company called inbev inbev came in and bought it in 2008. And the cultures really changed, whereas Anheuser-Busch was all about growing the brands, understood the U.S. consumer, Budweiser, Bud Light, all these things. InBev has had a different mentality. They're much more of a, they call it the world's largest private equity from the happen to sell beer.
A lot of cost cutting that went on, brought a lot of European people into the United States, changed the headquarters from St. Louis, Missouri, which is almost the geographical center of the country. And a wonderful town. Wonderful town. And they moved it to New York City. And then when they moved it to New York City- Not a wonderful town. Very different town, different mentality. And then all of a sudden, they had bought a bunch of different beer companies. After buying Anna's and Bush, they bought Group Modelo, SCB Miller, took on too much debt. All of a sudden, the company in 2017- Wait, you're saying a private equity firm took on too much debt? Yeah, it wouldn't be the first time. So, you know, never happened before, right? Never happened before.
And I think the bigger problem was, is that in 2018, 19, for a bunch of different reasons, the company to try and grow, they adopted a lot of the ESG, DEI philosophies that we've heard a lot about, stakeholder capitalism, which is this European concept that businesses are supposed to serve all types of purposes. That pops up. And then two or three years later, all of a sudden, the company has really changed. It changed from sort of a great American company based in the Midwest, based off meritocracy values. And then all of a sudden, in the kind of post-COVID, post-George Floyd era, Anheuser-Busch, they start – moving away from being a meritocracy, moving more towards diversity, equity, inclusion, moving more towards getting more involved in political issues. And, you know, unfortunately with what happened with Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light, that was the product of maybe 10 years of mistakes the company had made.
What is stakeholder capitalism and how did it affect American companies?
And now all of a sudden you have a company that's lost 50% of its sales with the biggest beer in America, Bud Light, and they still haven't turned it around. So that's the short story. Now we can get into the longer story about maybe more broadly what happened.
Okay, so, I mean, you're describing so many American companies, by the way. Yeah. That trajectory downward. But at the end of the story, there was this revealing moment where Anheuser-Busch executives, or one of them, basically just admitted, I hate our consumers. And you wonder like, where does that mind?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
How did Anheuser-Busch lose its way?
0:00–3:03
2
What is stakeholder capitalism and how did it affect American companies?
3:03–18:02
3
How did the events of 2020 impact business strategies?
18:02–34:38
4
What role does DEI play in corporate America?
34:38–54:36
5
How did Zyn's DEI agenda affect its business?
54:36–1:08:11
6
Why are some companies pushing for social issues?
1:08:11–1:20:25
7
What happened with Bud Light's marketing strategy?
1:20:25–1:27:09
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from The Tucker Carlson Show
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