Bud Light to Go Lime with $35 Million Launch

Anheuser-Busch will add a lime-infused extension to its popular Bud Light product line sometime this summer.

Apart from the name—Bud Light Lime, known as BL Lime on its bottles—the St. Louis-based brewer is not revealing many details about the new product, including marketing or promotional strategies. A six-pack of the new beer will cost $1 to $1.50 more than one of Bud Light, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Anheuser-Busch said that the launch, scheduled for May 5, 2008, will be supported with a total marketing investment of $35 million and will include elements of outdoor, TV, radio, print and digital advertising.

Anheuser-Busch denied that the launch was a direct response to the introduction one year ago of Miller Brewing’s Miller Chill, which integrated beer with the tastes of both lime and salt in part to appeal to Mexican consumers.

“Bud Light Lime is part of our ongoing commitment to innovate and offer consumers choices for every lifestyle and drinking occasion,” said Marlene Coulis, the company’s vice president of consumer strategy and innovation. “We also firmly believe that one of the best ways to continue building powerful, distinct brand families is to fully align with the needs of our target segments. Bud Light Lime addresses the sweeter palate of 29% of beer consumers and builds off the successful of the world’s best-selling beer, Bud Light.”

An Anheuser-Busch spokesman told WSJ that the company had been considering a lime-infused specialty beer for more than two years.

Anheuser-Busch will also break with longstanding practice and skip the test-marketing phase of Bud Light Lime’s introduction. “We developed an aggressive research plan to determine the right path to market for Bud Light Lime, and the feedback we received strongly supported an immediate national launch,” Coulis said.

Anheuser-Busch’s Michelob Ultra line already offers “Lime Cactus”, another lime-flavored beer. The company has also rolled out Chelada, a pre-mixed cocktail of its Budweiser or Bud Light brands with Clamato, a tomato-juice cocktail from Cadbury Schweppes PLC.

Rather than cannibalizing sales of its standard products, Anheuser-Busch says the Chelada introduction has increased sales of Bud or Bud Light in some markets.