Get woke, go broke.
Remember my post of April 13, 2023, “Sales of trans-woke Bud Light plunge“?
Bud Light tried to rescue the catastrophe by:
- Firing (“putting on leave”) the two executives responsible for the company’s use of
transgender transvestite activist and “influencer” Dylan Mulvaney to promote Bud Light’s March Madness contest: Marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid and her boss, Daniel Blake.
- Blaming “an outside agency” for the hiring of Mulvaney, but without actually naming the marketing firm.
Despite those efforts, things are only getting worse for Bud Light and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch.
The New York Post reports that “Bud Light’s sales drop is accelerating amid Dylan Mulvaney fiasco — and is now spilling into other Bud brands”:
Nationwide retail sales of Bud Light were down 23.4% versus a year ago in the week of April 29 — worse than the 21.4% decline it suffered a week earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ data.
Meanwhile, as beer drinkers discover how many other beer brands fall under the Anheuser-Busch umbrella, the backlash is widening, according to the fresh data.
The company’s flagship Budweiser brand took an 11.4% sales hit for the week ended April 29. Sales of Bud’s Michelob Ultra brand — the third-biggest-selling in the US behind No. 1 Bud Light and No. 2 Modelo Especial — were down 4.4%, according to Bump Williams data.
“It’s not just a Bud Light issue,” said Bump Williams, chief executive of the consultancy.
“It’s an Anheuser-Busch portfolio problem now.”
Anheuser-Busch’s smaller US brands also got dinged, with its Natural Light brand down 5.2% and its Busch Light seeing a 1.8% drop.
The widening sales declines mark a painful hit for Bud’s dominant US beer business. Last year, sales of Bud Light topped $4.8 billion, according to the Connecticut-based firm….
“If Bud Light doesn’t fix its trend by the end of this month, it will continue to lose market share because it will lose Memorial Day. That kicks off the summer season,” Williams told The Post. “There has to be a sense of urgency for InBev to correct these trends.”
It’s the fourth consecutive week of double-digit sales drops linked to Anheuser-Busch’s brief marketing tie-up with the transgender influencer, which began on April 1 when Mulvaney posted videos of herself sitting in a bubble bath drinking Bud Light.
“Anecdotally we are hearing that sales of Bud Light are declining more rapidly at bars and restaurants where some consumers don’t want to be seen drinking it or they are getting into arguments over the brand,” said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights.
Rival brewers, meanwhile, are gaining market share at Bud Light’s expense. Coors Light and Miller Light each saw a more than 20% sales increase in the week ended April 29 compared to a year ago, according to Bump Williams and Nielsen data.
Pabst Blue Ribbon was up 18.9% while Keystone Light saw a 15% bump over the same period.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!
~E
