Still, Molson Coors CEO Gavin Hattersley told analysts during the company’s earnings call this morning that there’s no telling how long the sales increase will last.
“We haven’t built any of the current trends into our guidance,” he said. “It’s too soon to tell where this all is going to go.”
The Chicago-based company reported first-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ expectations and sent its stock price up about 9% this morning. Net sales of $2.35 billion were up about 6% from the same period last year, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by more than 5.2%. Executives said the increase came partly from price hikes implemented in 2022 to offset inflation. Coors Light and Miller Lite also increased sales volume in the first quarter, which executives attributed in part to Super Bowl ads, the company’s first in more than 30 years.
Read more: How Molson Coors’ Super Bowl ad came together
The Coors and Miller sales bumps related to the Bud Light situation were not reported in earnings for the first quarter, which ended March 31. Analysts were curious what effects it would have on the company.
The Bud Light uproar started about a month ago, after Mulvaney posted a photo of herself on social media holding a Bud Light can with her face on it.
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Bud Light and parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev have received pushback and boycott threats from conservative consumers for the sponsorship deal with Mulvaney. Kid Rock shot packs of the beer with a gun in protest. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene documented her purchase of competitor Coors Light. And a new beer brand recently launched is billed as a “woke-free” alternative to Bud Light. Anheuser-Busch has since changed marketing leadership for Bud Light over the debacle.
For Bud Light, the situation is likely not a short-term fix, Bump Williams said in an email.
“One thing is for sure,” he said. “If it’s not fixed by Memorial Day (the unofficial start of the summer selling season), then the year is lost.”
Regardless, Hattersley said Molson Coors does not plan to increase marketing spend because of Bud Light’s lost market share. He told analysts that the company’s brands had good momentum coming out of 2022, setting them up for a strong summer. The company had built up inventories last year, which positioned it well for the sales increase. Molson Coors had already planned to increase marketing spend heading into summer.
“Our focus remains on our brands, and not really focused on what the competitors are or aren’t doing,” Hattersley said. “We built our brands very deliberately over the last three years and we’ve made great progress on our portfolio.”
