Man, Bud Light is struggling.
It’s no secret that the beer has received a ton of backlash from their original demographic after their marketing campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney last month.
We’ve seen Kid Rock shoot up a bunch of Bud Light cases with his rifle in an act of protest, Travis Tritt and John Rich from Big & Rich said that they’ll no longer be supporting the beer, including a removal from Rich’s Nashville bar, Redneck Riviera.
We also saw Brantley Gilbert smashed a Bud Light can a fan threw on stage at one of his shows in protest.
An insider at Stagecoach also said that besides the Bud Light section of the festival, hardly any bars were selling the beer.
Those are just a few of several examples, and it spans way beyond the country music realm.
With that being said, one of those outside examples was displayed recently at Fenway Park, the home of the Boston Red Sox. Video footage has gone viral of exactly zero people waiting in line at the Bud Light stand inside the stadium, and you can see the coolers are still completely full.
And if you look at the other stand right next to it, the line is absolutely packed.
This is just further proof of the hit that Bud Light has taken for their decision to roll with Dylan Mulvaney.
Ever since Bud Light began to receive a ton of backlash for their move, it appears they’ve been lowkey trying to walk back their decision.
We saw Budweiser drop a full blown all patriotic, blue collar ad shortly after the Mulvaney campaign, and then Bud Light recently aired an ad of a few people dressed in country getup at what appears to be a country music festival, with Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” playing in the background.
Fans however, saw right through it.
Today, Anheuser-Busch CEO, Michel Doukeris, distanced the company from the Dylan Mulvaney stunt, saying that it was not a campaign but rather one can that was sent to an influencer. According to Fox Business, he said:
“This was the result of one can. It was not made for production or sale to general public. It was one post, not a formal campaign or advertisement.”
According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a study by Bump Williams Consulting, which specializes in the alcoholic beverage industry, found that sales of Bud Light have dropped a staggering 26% in the past week, a bigger decrease than the 21% they had declined the week prior.
So not only has Bud Light failed to stop the bleeding: It’s actually getting worse.
And while Bud Light remains the best selling beer brand in the country, outpacing its next closest competitor Modelo Especial by over $1 billion, the CEO of Bump Williams says that if Bud Light isn’t able to turn the tides, the brand is in danger of losing its spot at the top:
“Bud Light is in serious trouble this year. And I think it runs the risk of losing that No. 1 position at the end of calendar year 2023 to Modelo Especial.”
Overall, sales of the beer are down by 8% so far for the year, which Bump Williams attributes to not only the marketing campaign but also the comments made by the now-former VP of Marketing:
“Her big miss was I don’t think she understood who the core Bud Light shopper was. When she came out with her comments, they were deemed as being derogatory, insulting and juvenile. And the Bud Light drinkers said ‘Enough of that.’”
It remains to be seen whether Bud Light will be able to reverse the trend and stop the bleeding that it’s been facing for the last month or so. But when you see those numbers, it’s pretty clear that whatever they’re doing right now definitely doesn’t seem to be working.
