Bud Light suffered another weekly sales plunge months after the company engaged in a promotional campaign with a transgender influencer, according to sales data.
The Anheuser-Busch brand saw sales drop by 26.8 percent for the week ending July 22, according to data from industry analyst Bump Williams, citing NielsenIQ. During the previous week, sales dropped 26.1 percent.
Mr. Williams, chief executive of Bump Williams Consulting, said that it appears Modelo Especial will end Bud Light’s two decades of dominance as the No. 1 beer in America by August. That came as a surprise to his company, he said.
Modelo Especial, which is owned by New York-based Constellation Brands in the United States, has reached 8.2 percent market share for 2023. Bud Light is still No. 1 with 8.4 percent, but it appears that it’s slipping, according to the data cited by the New York Post.
Modelo’s rise and Bud Light’s decline means it’s “the closest any brand has come to surpassing Bud Light as the King of Beers,” Mr. Williams remarked. For May and June, Modelo was ranked as the top-selling beer in the United States, the data shows.
Other Anheuser-Busch products have seen their sales decline, too. The recent data shows that sales of Michelob Ultra dipped 0.9 percent, Busch Light dropped 1.1 percent, and Budweiser sales were down 10.3 percent for the week ending July 22.
Bud Light’s sales decline has also been beneficial for other light beers. Yuengling Lager’s sales have increased 21.3 percent, Miller Lite is up 17.7 percent, and Coors Light is up 21.2 percent, according to the Bump Williams data.
Officials with Anheuser-Busch told industry analysts the company believes Bud Light’s sales declines are now “stabilizing” at about the “25 percent to 28 percent range” for several weeks now, said Mr. Williams.
Start of Controversy
The decline in sales all started in early April when Bud Light produced a can with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney’s face on it before the social media influencer posted it on social media.Conservatives immediately reacted, and several prominent entertainment figures suggested a boycott of the brand.
Conservatives have mocked Bud Light’s attempts to pivot to a more America- and sports-friendly advertising campaign in the months since the boycott began. Some have demanded that the company apologize or directly address the controversy.
Days after the boycott was launched, Anheuser-Busch executive Brendan Whitworth said the company was not trying to be “part of a discussion that divides people” and that it is “in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
“We have thousands of partners, millions of fans and a proud history of supporting our communities,” Mr. Whitworth, a former CIA officer, also said. “My time serving this country taught me the importance of accountability and the values upon which America was founded: freedom, hard work and respect for one another.”
Weeks after that, AB InBev CEO Michel Dourkeris said the Mulvaney promotion involved just “one can” and claimed that social media-driven “misinformation” was behind the boycott. He said that the company would triple its investment into the brand.
Layoffs Announced
Anheuser-Busch confirmed on July 27 that it would be laying off some of its corporate staff in the midst of the backlash. Reports indicated that about 350 employees would be terminated.A restructuring will be implemented to “simplify and reduce layers within its organization,” the firm said. Without providing any more details, Anheuser-Busch said the layoffs won’t include workers such as “brewery and warehouse staff, drivers, and field sales, among others.”
One analyst said it may be a sign that Americans have had enough of corporations embracing left-wing viewpoints.
Several other companies have also faced boycott threats in recent months.
Retailer Target confirmed in a statement to outlets several weeks ago that it removed some of its LGBT-related products from stores after it was noted that the company was selling LGBT products for children, including infants.
