Consumers nationwide have joined Kid Rock and revolted against Bud Light over the backlash from a recent marketing with transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, according to a Fox Business report.
“They’ve already done enough damage in one week to disrupt year-long sales projections,” said a national beer-sales representative said. “You don’t just make up those sales. People aren’t going to drink twice as much Bud Light the following weekend to recover the lost business.”
“I think society flexes it muscles sometimes and reminds manufacturers that the consumer is still in charge,” Jeff Fitter, owner of Case & Bucks, a restaurant and sports bar in Barnhart, Missouri. “In Bud Light’s effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else, including their traditional audience.”
“It’s kind of mind-boggling they stepped into this realm,” said John Rieker, owner of Harpo’s Bar and Grill in Chesterfield, Missouri. “You’re marketing to an audience that represents a fraction of 1% of consumers while alienating the much larger base of your consumers.”
“Sometimes you just want to drink a beer without getting a lecture on social or political commentary or someone’s sexual orientation,” said Patrick Imig, a hospitality consultant in St. Louis.
According to Fox Business:
Case & Bucks near Anheuser-Busch’s HQ in St. Louis has seen a 30% drop in Bud Light bottle sales and a 50% drop in Bud Light on tap.
Braintree Brewhouse in Massachusetts normally sells 25 Bud Light bottles to each bottle of rivals Miller Lite and Coors Light, but this week there has been an 80% drop in Bud Light drinkers. Owner Alex Kesaris found out that the 20% who did order Bud Light hadn’t heard the news, but said “they didn’t order it again” after other customers told them about Dylan Mulvaney.
A bar in Texas with a dart league sponsored by Bud Light normally sells three kegs of Bud Light during the weekly event, or 495 12-ounce bottles. The bar only sold four 12-ounce bottles this week, a decline of 99%.
A pub in the LGBT-friendly neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen in uber-liberal New York City reported a 58% drop in Bud Light draft sales and a 70% drop in bottle sales.
Bud Light went woke & recently hired marketing lead, Alissa Heinerscheid, a woke Ivy League grad, as the first woman to lead marketing for a major beer brand
She’s officially the first woman to destroy the largest beer brand in the industry
pic.twitter.com/GqnRiIZUhv— Ynot Llewoh (@ynotllewoh) April 8, 2023
This is how we gain back ground #gowokegobroke #anheuserbusch #budlight pic.twitter.com/h8nxSTEaBH
— Warrior Poet Society (@johnlovell275) April 8, 2023
