The fallout from Bud Light’s trans marketing fiasco continues apace with confirmation sales are now down 26 per cent following a well-publicised customer boycott and the brand now a real risk of losing its long-held title of America’s biggest selling brew.
Bud, of course, grabbed global headlines after using trans activist and comic Dylan Mulvaney in a social media campaign about three weeks ago.
Loyal Bud drinkers – who tend to be white males from America’s Midwest – began boycotting the beer in droves, wiping $US5 billion of value off the brand, while two of the marketers behind the ill-fated campaign were sent on indefinite leave.
Over the weekend, US alcohol trade site Beer Business Daily reported that Bud Light’s off-premise sales volume – meaning the amount of beer sold outside of restaurants and bars – had fallen by 26.1 per cent from a year earlier in the week ended April 22.
However, this was good news for Bud Light’s rivals Miller Light and Coors Light whose sales were up 13.6 and 13.1 per cent respectively.
Top selling beers in the US (all values in US dollars)
While the beer remains the best-selling beer brand in the country, if parent company Anheuser-Busch can’t reverse the decline in sales, “then Bud Light is in serious trouble this year,” brewing expert Bump Williams told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
“I think it runs the risk of losing that number one position at the end of calendar year 2023 to Modelo Especial,” Williams said.
Modelo Especial is currently America’s second-biggest selling beer with annual sales of $US3.7 billion to Bud Light’s $US4.8 billion.
Williams also said he was beginning to see other Anheuser-Busch brands suffering from what is known as a negative halo effect, with the controversy from Bud Light spilling over.
According to media reports, Anheuser-Busch’s C-suite are telling anyone who’ll listen that the company has big plans to shore up Bud’s number one position with extensive marketing and advertising campaigns.
On top of the planned marketing blitz, executives working for Bud Light will also go through a more rigorous screening process, according to one Northeast-based beer distributor who spoke to The New York Post.
“There will be an improved screening process before any marketing hits the public. Executives will have to go through a more rigorous screening process,” an Anheuser-Busch spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, none other than Donald Trump Junior has jumped to the brand’s defence and called for an end to the drinker boycotts.
Donald Trump Jr
It’s since been revealed that Anheuser-Busch is a significant donator to the Republican Party.
In a video posted to Trump’s Rumble channel, the son of Donald said it was wrong to “blame the whole company for the inaction or the stupidity of someone in a marketing campaign that got woke as hell”.
Trump Junior said that the decision to partner with Mulvaney was reportedly made by a low-level marketing employee.
“We looked into the political giving and lobbying history of Anheuser-Busch. And guess what? They actually support Republicans,” said Trump Junior.
“Last cycle their employees and their PAC gave about 60 percent to Republicans and 40 percent to Democrats. That’s literally almost unheard of in corporate America, where it’s really easy to go woke, where they do so constantly, where there’s a consequence to actually being a conservative. So 60 / 40 to the conservative side is kind of a big deal.”
As reported on B&T last week, right-wing politician Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched a range of beer stubbies featuring prominent female Republicans that enabled drinkers to cover up their Bud Lights if they found themselves embarrassed at barbecues or family get togethers.
