If this ends up killing the Bud Light brand, what is a comparable precedent?

Coke was lucky with “New Coke” in the 80’s. But they took a real flogging for a while.

Even the failure of Crystal Pepsi wasn’t bad for Pepsi because they didn’t stop selling the original.

LINK

British CEO George Ratner called his products total crap at a conference in the early 1990s. They were cheaply-made cherry decanters that working-class people brought to feel fancy.

It caused 300 of his stores to close and his company had to change name.

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Gerald Ratner, a previous CEO who built the company from 130 stores to 2500, made possibly the most famous gaffe in twentieth-century British business when he explained to a major business conference that the reason why one of his products was so cheap was that it was "total crap". He then went on to unfavourably compare some of the company's earrings with a 99p prawn sandwich. His remarks were gleefully reported by the media. The company lost over 500 million pounds off its share price and consumers subsequently avoided the Ratner branded stores, nearly 300 of which were closed between January 1992 and May 1994 as the group went through a financial restructuring. Ratner resigned in November 1992, and the group changed its name to Signet Group plc in September 1993

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Billy Squier and the "Rock Me Tonight" video.

BetaMax was the better technology compared to VHS. Sony didn't think home users would want to record from TV so they basically made that functionality an afterthought.

A Kodak engineer invented the digital camera in 1975. When he showed it to executives, it was shelved because Kodak made so much money in film. Kodak went bankrupt as digital cameras came to market.

But those were just bad product decisions, like New Coke. This is an entirely new issue.

Bud Light is now the Milli Vanilli brand of all light beer.

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Having a hard time coming up with another example where a solid, massive brand (even for a crap product) was taken down so precipitously due to a single, unforced decision.

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The US dollar and the current monetary policy to print more money. Happening before our eyes.

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I'm assuming Bud Light will never again be the brand it was before this debacle.

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BUD pps has not been been hit as hard as I'd have expected. In fact, thru Apr 26, BUD was escalating in price. If earnings miss (May4) and the stock tanks, the CEO and responsible management members will finally be on the hot seat.

If they are shown the door, and if the new mgt team cancels the Mulvaney BS, apologizes and changes the marketing push 180°, Bud Light could still recover. Lot's of "ifs" though.
Time will tell.

Tab (soda)

Tab was the first diet soda to hit the market back when saccharin (artificial sweetener) was just being introduced. After initial tests showed an increase of cancer in lab mice, the FDA mandated warning labels on all consumables with the ingredient.

Even though the risk was extremely low, consumers were unwilling to gulp down products with cancer warnings on it. Eventually the FDA pulled back but it was too late.

Mulvane is the cancer label of Bud lite

I’ve spent some time trying to come up with a worse unforced error and I’m stumped.