Beer industry expert warns that the Bud Light situation is deteriorating.
As the fallout from Bud Light’s marketing partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney is well into its sixth month, a beer industry expert said that the company’s decline seems “quasi-permanent” with few signs of abating.
Bud Light’s sales slump deepened mid-August amid ongoing backlash from the brand’s engagement with Mr. Mulvaney, who recently poked fun at the controversy during an awards show, sparking a fresh round of critical news headlines.
Conservative calls for a boycott of Bud Light have been a pillar of the backlash, with Harry Schuhmacher, the publisher of Beer Business Daily, commenting on the woes the brand has suffered since Mr. Mulvaney showed off a personalized Bud Light can with his face on it on April Fools Day earlier this year.
Mr. Schuhmacher, who’s been the publisher of Beer Business Daily for 20 years, told Fox News in an interview on Sept. 8 that the Bud Light situation “has actually gotten worse.”
His publication recently reported on Bud Light’s weekly sales trends—down 26.9 percent in dollars and down 30.3 percent in volume in year-over-year terms, based on Nielsen IQ sales data via Bump Williams Consulting.
Mr. Schuhmacher told Fox News that he thinks Bud Light will probably see similar declines for the “foreseeable future.”
“Bud Light still just stubbornly down around 30 percent in volume compared to last year, which is where it’s been since May or June,” Mr. Schuhmacher told the outlet.
“That tells me that this is quasi-permanent, meaning those consumers are just lost forever,” he added.
He added that he thought Bud Light’s sales “would have rebounded by now,” but the backlash to the brand’s partnership with Mr. Mulvaney appears to have hit a major nerve with consumers and done lasting damage.
“It’s actually worse than just lost sales because now it’s getting to the point where it’s becoming systemic within the industry, and they’re losing the confidence of the retailers and that’s when it starts getting bad,” he told Fox.
Mr. Schuhmacher added that he sees the summer of 2024 as a key test for Bud Light’s long-term success.
But one prominent businessman, Bill Gates, appears to be betting on a Bud Light rebound.
Bill Gates Backs Bud Light
Bill Gates bought tens of millions of dollars worth of Bud Light’s parent company in recent days, according to reporting from The Epoch Times.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust purchased 1.7 million shares of Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, at a value of around $95 million, according to a regulatory filing and TipRanks.
Mr. Gates reportedly purchased the shares in August, several months after Bud Light first faced boycott calls over its partnership with Mr. Mulvaney.
News of Mr. Gates’ purchase of nearly $100 million in shares of Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, was met with a critical reaction from the company’s former executive.
“Bill Gates is definitely making a mistake,” former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks told Fox Business. “Earlier this year, he already made a $900 million mistake when he invested into one of Anheuser-Busch’s largest rivals, Heineken.”
“He did that earlier this year. And since that investment, Heineken’s down about 10 percent, whereas the broader markets are up 10 percent,” Mr. Frericks added.
The Boycott
Bud Light’s ongoing sales slump was prompted by the brand’s engagement with Mr. Mulvaney—a man who identifies as a woman.
“This month I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever—a can with my face on it,” Mr. Mulvaney said in a video posted on social media on April Fool’s Day.
Mr. Mulvaney, who has over 10 million followers on TikTok, posted a series of videos promoting Bud Light and showing off the personalized can.
Conservatives accused the brand of promoting a transgender agenda and called for a boycott.
Singer Kid Rock used Bud Light cans as target practice to express his anger at the promotional campaign, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would be boycotting Bud Light.
Former President Donald Trump also weighed in on the controversy, suggesting boycotts can be an effective way to send a message to brands that critics say are pushing a leftist agenda.
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