Corona beer says surveys ‘unfounded’ amid COVID-19 claims

The New York-based PR agency reported that “38 percent” of American beer drinkers would not buy Corona beer now as a result of its unfortunate similarity – and purely coincidental in name only – with the coronavirus also known as COVID-19. Of the 737 US beer drinkers who participated in the 5W survey, approximately 16 percent indicated they were confused about whether or not the Corona beer is related to the virus. 

Another survey conducted by the UK-based YouGov said consumer confidence to purchase Corona beer has been the lowest in two years. 

The implications of both surveys could have far-reaching effects on the popular North American beer originated in Mexico.

In a statement on Friday Constellation Brands said it was moved “to address unfounded concerns about the impact of the COVID-19 virus on its business and consumer sentiment related to the company’s Corona beer brand”.

In what it said was a “fact-based” response, the company said: “Based on recent IRI retail trends, sales of Corona Extra remain strong, with dollar sales up 5% in the U.S. per the latest four-week period ended February 16, nearly doubling the 52-week trend for the brand. Similarly, depletion trends for Corona Extra for the first two months of this calendar year through February 26, as well as the month of February, have also outpaced their 52-week trend. In addition, IRI dollar sales trends for the entire Corona brand family are also outpacing their 52-week trend in the latest four-week and 12-week periods. Furthermore, all business units supporting our beer business are seeing positive sales trends for the brand thus far this calendar year.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this terrible virus and we hope efforts to more fully contain it gain traction soon,” added Bill Newlands, president and chief executive officer at Constellation Brands. “It’s extremely unfortunate that recent misinformation about the impact of this virus on our business has been circulating in traditional and social media without further investigation or validation. These claims simply do not reflect our business performance and consumer sentiment, which includes feedback from our distributor and retailer partners across the country. We’ve seen no impact to our people, facilities or operations and our business continues to perform very well. Unlike many of our competitors, sales of our beer brands are focused almost entirely on the U.S. market. Our company does not have much exposure to international markets such as China that have been most impacted by this situation. I’m extremely proud of the efforts of our team. We’ve built good momentum as we gear up for the upcoming summer selling season.”

Corona is the seventh most popular beer and cider brand and the 14th most famous worldwide.

"While the brand has claimed that consumers understand there's no linkage between the virus and the beer company, this is a disaster for the Corona brand," said Ronn Torossian, founder and CEO of 5W, as cited by The Straits Times, while denying that his company work for any Corona competitor though 1800 Tequila and Sparkling ICE are listed on their website as clients.

More than 83,000 people globally have been infected by the coronavirus, with nearly 3,000 deaths reported as at February 28.