The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2021–2024
AB InBev killed Cacti, the Travis Scott seltzer, nine months after launch
A crowd crush at Astroworld left ten dead; AB InBev let the partnership expire and stopped making the hard seltzer.
Anheuser-Busch InBev · Travis Scott (CACTI co-founder) · 2021-12-10
What happened
Cacti launched nationwide on March 16, 2021: an agave spiked seltzer co-founded by Travis Scott with Anheuser-Busch, who described Scott as 'super hands-on' on the product and the logo. It sold out online within 12 hours and took 3.2 percent of the hard seltzer category in its first week — the highest first-week rate of sale for a variety pack in AB history.
On November 5, 2021, a crowd crush at Scott's Astroworld festival left ten people dead. The partnership agreement expired by mutual agreement on November 30; on December 10 AB InBev announced it would stop all production and brand development of Cacti, saying 'we believe brand fans will understand and respect this decision.' The brewer declined to confirm whether the festival was the reason.
The brand's full run came to $51.2 million in tracked chain retail over the 52 weeks ending November 28, 2021, peaking at just over one percent of the hard seltzer market. In early 2024 Cacti relaunched without Anheuser-Busch; the brewer said it was 'not involved in the production, distribution or sale of the recently launched product.'
Why it happened
- The product's whole value was one person's name — when the festival made that name untouchable, the brewer had a seltzer whose entire marketing story was its co-founder.
- The launch was built on scarcity hype that sold out in 12 hours, and hype cuts both ways: the same machine that sells out a launch makes a tragedy the fastest product-killer.
- AB moved in steps — let the contract expire, then announce the ending — so the decision had no single moment and nobody ever confirmed the reason out loud.
The lesson
A celebrity product's whole value is the celebrity: when the name became untouchable, the only options were ending quietly or seeming to profit from tragedy.
Aftermath
Cacti was discontinued in December 2021 and Anheuser-Busch never confirmed a connection to Astroworld; Travis Scott did no further work with the brewer. In early 2024 the brand relaunched with a new distributor and a Houston Astros spring-training naming-rights deal, with Anheuser-Busch explicitly uninvolved.
Sources
- Billboard — Travis Scott's Cacti Hard Seltzer Discontinued by Anheuser-Busch, 10 Dec 2021
- CNBC — Anheuser-Busch CEO on the success of Travis Scott-backed Cacti, 17 Mar 2021
- Forbes — CACTI Eclipses Hard Seltzer Giants In First Week Of Sales, 31 Mar 2021
- Chron — Travis Scott's Cacti seltzer relaunch, 9 Feb 2024
- Good Beer Hunting — Discontinued Cacti Becomes a Once-Hot Footnote, 14 Dec 2021
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