Bud Light’s Bad Sales Persist As Backlash Continues

By Will Kessler, The Daily Caller Foundation | June 21, 2023

Bud Light’s year-over-year sales numbers have continued to drop in June, three months after controversy began over its partnership with a transgender influencer, new sales data shows.

Bud Light sales dropped 26.8% from the prior year for the week ending June 10, and 25.2% for the four-week period ending June 10, according to Nielsen IQ sales data provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by Bump Williams Consulting. The drop is part of a backlash against the brand after Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a March Madness promotion.

In total, Bud Light sales are down 10.3% in 2023 so far, while top competitor Modelo Especial is up 8.3%. Modelo has overtaken Bud Light as the top-selling U.S. beer over the four-week period ending June 10, with Bud Light having 7.2% of the market and Modelo Especial having 8.4%. Despite the larger market share by sales, Bud Light still sold more by volume over the four-week period, representing 8.7% of the total market volume sold as opposed to 7.1% by Modelo Especial.

Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, has seen decreases compared to the previous year in other beer brands owned by the company. Budweiser has seen a 10.2% decrease and Busch Light has seen a 4.2% decrease in year-over-year sales for the week ending June 10.

The decrease in sales as compared to last year represents a bigger decrease than the 24.4% decrease of the previous week ending June 3, which had then marked the worst week since the controversy began in April.

The backlash against Bud Light began after the company partnered with transgender social media star Dylan Mulvaney, who has gained notoriety for a TikTok series where Mulvaney documents the influencer’s experience as a transgender woman. The promotion included advertisements by Mulvaney featuring a customized beer can with Mulvaney’s face on it.

Two marketing executives for Bud Light, Daniel Blake and Alissa Heinerscheid, have since been put on leave of absence from the company following the boycott. A video of Heinerscheid surfaced where she said, “Bud Light had been a brand of fratty kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.”

Anheuser-Busch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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