These Beer Brands Are Eating Up Bud Light’s Business Amid Dylan Mulvaney Backlash

Cans of Bud Light sit in a cooler in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 30, 2023. Rob Carr/Getty Images

Bud Light’s weekly sales have continued to drop following its marketing connection with a transgender influencer in April, while four of its rivals are seeing increases, according to recent data.

For the week ending on July 15, the Anheuser-Busch-produced light beer saw its sales tumble about 26.1 percent year-over-year, according to data provided to news outlets by Bump William Consulting citing NielsenIQ. That’s worse than the 23.6 percent sales drop for the week ending July 4, the data show.

Data show that other Anheuser-Busch brands have again seen drops in sales. Budweiser suffered a 10 percent drop in sales for the same week, while Michelob Ultra and Busch Light saw drops of 1.3 percent and 2.8 percent, respectively.

Competitors, in the meantime, saw their sales increase. Modelo Especial’s sales were up 13.2 percent for the July 15-ending week, Pennsylvania-based Yuengling is up 25 percent, Coors Lite increased by 21.6 percent, and Miller Lite has gone up by 16.9 percent.

“If things continue at the current rate, we’ll continue to see Modelo climb the ladder and Miller Lite, Coors Light and Yuengling gain market share,” Dave Williams, vice president of the firm, told the New York Post.

Bud Light’s woes started when the company produced a beer can featuring the likeness of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in early April, sparking widespread confusion and backlash on social media. Some prominent conservative influencers, musicians, and others suggested consumers boycott the brand and demanded apologies.

Weeks later, Anheuser-Busch CEO Michel Doukeris in May told investors at the time that just “one can” was made with the transgender influencer’s face on it in what appeared to be a bid to distance the brand from the controversy. He also claimed that social media-driven misinformation and confusion triggered the backlash, although the company has not directly addressed why consumers may be unhappy.

Mr. Doukeris said his company would triple its investment in Bud Light over the summer. However, despite the reported investment, sales of the brand have continued to drop on a weekly basis and is No. 2 behind Modelo Especial, which is owned by Constellation Brands, for the months of May and June.

During the May call with investors, he also said it was too early to have a full view of the impact of the backlash against LGBT-linked promotions.

According to the most recent data, Modelo Especial was the top-selling beer brand for the four weeks ended July 1, with an 8.7 percent share of overall beer sales through retail stores for the period, while Bud Light came in second with a 7 percent share.

More Warnings

Meanwhile, a report from Union, an analytics company, found last week that sales of Bud Light have dropped “in all of Union’s top markets, and not necessarily representative of politically conservative demographics, with New York and New Jersey losing almost as many points as Texas.”

In the Union article, the Light Group, a Hoboken, New Jersey-based restaurant group, revealed that other beer sales have increased in the midst of the Bud Light backlash.

“We saw our numbers go up across the board for those specific brands,” Brandon Bovino, chief operating officer at The Light Group, told Union. “We haven’t seen customers mad at us for carrying [Bud Light], more so customers commenting on purchases from other customers.”

Bottles of Budweiser beer in a shop window in London on Oct. 13, 2015. Like Bud Light, Budweiser has also seen a recent drop in sales. Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo

The recent sales figures prompted a warning from a former Anheuser-Busch executive.

“I think there’s going to be some permanent damage to this brand,” Mr. Frericks told Newsweek earlier this month. “Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be a long way to go to get back the market share they lost and a lot of headwind in front of them.”

The former executive, who departed the company years ago, said Bud Light may suffer “permanent damage” from the backlash, adding that it is “spreading from Bud Light to their other brands.” It also “means not only Bud Light but a lot of the other brands in their portfolio are also going to be losing shelf space,” he said.

Anheuser-Busch has not issued a public comment on the recent sales figures. The Epoch Times has contacted the company for comment Monday.

But in a recent comment to several media outlets about slumping sales, a spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch told news outlets that for the year-to-date period, Bud Light is still the “No. 1 brand in the industry” for both dollars and overall volume, at an 8.7 share. “The Anheuser-Busch portfolio continues to be the leader of the category as the No. 1 brewer at 35.6 share in the latest week,” the spokesperson said.

Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch’s  CEO in the United States, has avoided publicly and explicitly defending the Mulvaney promotional content.

When he was asked about the controversy, Mr. Whitworth told CBS News this month: “Over the last month, we’ve talked to over 100,000 consumers and their feedback is very clear.

“The feedback is to reinforce what Bud Light has always meant to them,“ he said, ”which is good times, goodwill, and easy enjoyment.”