The beer industry is reportedly in shock over the continuing effects of the recent culture war over Bud Light’s promotion of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Annheuser-Busch continues to bleed from the commercial fallout of the ensuing consumer boycott while competitors are reaping the rewards of Bud Light’s ill-advised ad campaign.
Sales of Bud Light had fallen by 24.6% by the close of the week ending on May 13, while Bud’s competitors have seen a comparable rise in sales:
“The whole industry is in shock. Even Bud’s competitors aren’t really dancing on the grave because they know it could have happened to them,” Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital.
“This particular promotion just really struck a chord. It was just a bridge too far, apparently, for consumers… we’re in week six and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better. In fact, the numbers just keep getting a little worse every week… down in the 25% area. And their competitors are up almost just as much, and that’s continuing through today.”
Schuhmacher also suggests that product shortages might be a consequence of the, as thirsty consumers disillusioned with Anheuser-Busch’s apparent embrace of gender ideology seek out beers from competitors such as Miller and Coors.
“You can’t just flip a switch and make beer. You know, beer is brewed. It takes, you know, at least a couple of weeks to make. So, they haven’t had major supply issues yet, but we’re about to hit Memorial Day and we could probably see some supply shortages there,” Schuhmacher said.
In an apparent act of desperation, Budweiser has offered a $15 rebate for the purchase of a 15-count or larger pack of beer — with the rebate exceeding the cost of the product in many markets. This promotion, ostensibly in celebration of Memorial Day, effectively gives away unsold, unwanted units for free to skeptical consumers.
Prior to the Bud Light-provoked boycott of Anheuser-Busch products, right wing activism rarely left a lasting commercial dent.
The slogan “go woke, go broke” had seldom manifested in previous instances of woke advertising campaigns. All that seemed to change when “Bud Light put a theater kid on a can,” as stated by marketing expert and writer Isaac Simpson.
“Just one step too far,” Simpson wrote. “The perfect humiliation. The ultimate symbol of the American working class painted over with a performative homosexual influencer. There was simply no capitalist explanation. In no world would gay elites and Brooklyn dog moms ever drink Bud Light, and no reasonable marketing person could think otherwise.”
Industry experts assert that the bigger picture is not the loss in sales of Bud Light in particular but rather the damage that the sustained boycott continues to inflict on other Anheuser-Bush products.
“Bud Light is ‘sick,’” beverage industry consultant Bump Williams told The New York Post. “It’s now infected other healthy brands with the InBev portfolio and that’s a bigger problem in my mind.”
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