Molson Coors, the conglomerate behind Coors, Miller, Blue Moon, and a bunch of other beers, reported earnings Tuesday (Feb. 13), and 2023 was a good year. Revenue was up 9.3% to a record $11.7 billion, and the company pulled in $1.5 billion in pre-tax profits.
“We’ve continued to raise the stakes and I’m proud to say that once again, we have delivered what we said we would,” CEO Gavin D. Hattersley said on the company’s earnings call.
Panic buyers
One of the big drivers of that growth was the downfall of a competitor. In April last year, TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a video to celebrate a partnership with Bud Light, owned by rival beer giant Anheuser-Busch InBev. Mulvaney, a trans woman, was pulled into the middle of a massive anti-trans panic, and conservatives rained fury upon AB InBev.
They assailed the brand with backlash, from politicians threatening lawsuits to buyings filming themselves shooting guns at Bud Light cans. They relentlessly bullied Mulvaney. They dethroned Bud Light to make the best-selling beer in America a brew from Mexico, Constellation Brands’s Modelo. And they started drinking a lot more Coors and Miller.
“Last year, our brands in the US also grew more share of the on-premise than any other brewer,” Hattersley boasted on the Molson Coors call, promising investors that the company would sustain its growth. But one analyst asked whether the company was nervous that Donald Trump posted on social media last week asking conservatives to give Bud Light another chance (ahead of a campaign fundraiser with an AB InBev lobbyist). Hattersley waved off the idea that the company would have to give up its culture war spoils.
“Our data shows that the majority of consumers who switched to our brands post-April have stayed with us throughout 2023, and then much more loyal to our brands than historically,” Hattersley said, speaking euphemistically about the Bud Light backlash. “The reality is there’s no reason to believe that these buyers are suddenly going to revert.”