Bud Light Sales Crash “Getting Much Worse” In Latest Week Since Dylan Mulvaney Fiasco

– Bud Light Sales Crash “Getting Much Worse” In Latest Week Since Dylan Mulvaney Fiasco:

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The latest industry figures show that Bud Light’s sales slump deepened into May as the fallout from the brand’s engagement with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney continues to hammer Bud Light’s bottom line.

Sales volumes of Bud Light fell by 23.6 percent in the week ended on May 6, according to retail scanner numbers cited by Beer Business Daily that are based on Nielsen IQ data.

That’s a drop from the 23.3 percent slide Bud Light suffered in the final week of April.

“Trends aren’t getting much worse, but certainly not getting any better either,” Beer Business Daily said in a commentary on the data, which represented a further decline from the 23.3 percent sales drop Bud Light suffered in the last week of April.

Meanwhile, sales volumes for Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes Bud Light, fell 9.7 percent in the first week of May, a slight improvement over the 11.4 percent drop the week prior, the industry data showed.

Anheuser-Busch did not immediately return a request for comment.

Mulvaney Controversy

The controversy that has hit Bud Light’s bottom line was sparked by the promotion of the brand by Mulvaney, a male who identifies as a woman.

A number of prominent conservative figures have called for a boycott over Mulvaney’s marketing engagement with Bud Light, which involved a custom-made beer can featuring Mulvaney’s face emblazoned on it.

Mulvaney, who has over 10 million followers on TikTok, posted a series of videos advertising Bud Light and showing off the personalized can.

The social media influencer rose to fame for chronicling a transition he dubbed “365 Days of Girlhood.”

“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,” Mulvaney said on April Fool’s Day.

Mulvaney’s engagement with Bud Light sparked outrage among many conservatives, some of whom 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 governor 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 whose critics say are pushing a leftist agenda.

“It’s time to beat the Radical Left at their own game,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social earlier in May. “Money does talk—Anheuser-Busch now understands that.”

‘Bud Light Crisis’

Anheuser-Busch CEO Michel Doukeris told the Financial Times in a recent interview that the boycott was driven by “misinformation and confusion” circulating on social media.

Doukeris insisted that Mulvaney’s involvement wasn’t part of an official Bud Light marketing campaign.

“It was one post. It was not an advertisement,” Doukeris told the outlet.

The Anheuser-Busch chief said that viral videos of billboards with images of the Bud Light can with Mulvaney’s face on it inserted “electronically” had been circulated on social media and viewed by millions of people.

“It was just like pure social media creation,” Doukeris said, insisting that it “had nothing to do with Bud Light.”

Doukeris said it was never Bud Light’s intention to mass-produce cans with Mulvaney’s likeness on them for sale to the broader public.