Bud Light sales are down a staggering amount since the beer brand entered the American culture wars and endorsed transgender “influencer” Dylan Mulaney.
Conservative activists responded by calling for a boycott of the beer brand — and the response from consumers has been overwhelming.
In fact, it is already being called one of the most effective boycotts in recent history.
And it’s impact is accelerating.
Bud Light’s in-store sales plummeted 11 percent year-over-year during the first week of the boycott ending April 8th, according to Bump Williams Consulting, a firm that tracks beer industry sales.
The week ending April 15th saw Bud Light’s in-store sales crash 21 percent year-over-year.
For the last week tracked, ending April 22nd, Bud Light’s sales were down 26 percent.
The sharp three-week decline has put Bud Light sales down 8 percent in the year 2023 — a major impact on parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD), which normally sells over $4.8 billion in Bud Light annually.
Before the boycott, Bud Light was America’s best-selling beer brand, far outpacing Modelo Especial ($3.75 billion in annual sales) and Michelob Ultra ($3.3 billion).
If Anheuser-Busch can’t win back customers soon, “then 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,” Bump Williams told The St. Louis Dispatch.
The company has not apologized to its customers.
“Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics. From time to time we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney,” the company said in a statement.
The company created a can for Mulvaney that cheered on the influencer’s one-year anniversary of transitioning medically to a female.
“This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public,” the company said.
In the face of the boycott, sales for Miller and Michelob have skyrocketed.
“The shocking deterioration of Bud Light Blue’s market share continued apace through the third week of April — and actually somehow worsened. We’ve never seen such a dramatic shift in national share in such a short period of time,” Beer Business Daily wrote on it’s website.
We have devastated Bud Light with this boycott. Easily the most effective conservative boycott in modern American history. And it shows us the path forward. All it takes is a little bit of strategic planning and follow-through. pic.twitter.com/a99zZTiE6y
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) May 2, 2023
The Horn editorial team