Well, at least somebody is still buying Bud Light.
The company is still struggling to deal with the fallout from their controversial decision to partner with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a marketing campaign, a move that’s caused the iconic beer brand’s sales to plummet amid major boycotts nationwide.
Sales of Bud Light for the week of May 6 were down 23.6% compared to the beer’s sales from the previous year, and that was an even further decline than the 23.3% they had dropped the previous week. So it seems that not only has the bleeding not stopped: It’s still getting worse.
Anheuser-Busch has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem to try to slow the losses, releasing an ad featuring Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” that was slammed as “pandering,” and also announcing that they would be tripling their marketing spend over the upcoming summer season in an attempt to win back customers.
They’ve even started giving the beer away, offering free cases of beer to every employee of a Bud Light wholesaler, along with other marketing efforts like introducing new camo bottles in a partnership with veteran organization Folds of Honor.
But now, things have gotten so bad that Bud Light may be forced to buy back their own product that’s sitting unsold on store shelves.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Anheuser-Busch has started telling wholesalers that it will buy back unsold cases of beer that have just been sitting around and are now past their expiration date.
Speaking on the controversy , AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris said the disaster has been an example of the power of social media – and the importance of staying out of contentious issues:
“In the current environment in the social media landscape, you know that consumer brands in different situations might be pulled into the discussion. With one can, one post… we saw how this grew.”
Looks like Bud Light will be their own biggest customer soon.
Red Sox Fans Completely Avoid Bud Light Stand At Fenway Park
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.
