Bud Light sales suffer worst weekly sales decline with 26.8% drop

Bud Light suffered another tragic week of setbacks as weekly sales plummeted 26.8 percent since its partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked mass protests against the brand.

The once-popular beer company experienced its worst sales week since teaming up with 26-year-old Mulvaney to celebrate her 365th day as a girl in April, dropping 26.8 percent the week of June 10.

According to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ, it’s a deeper drop from the week ending June 3, which saw a 24.4 percent drop.

The new lowest price beat the week ending May 25, which saw a drop of nearly 26 percent.

Anheuser-Busch’s other brands — including Budweiser and Natural Light — have also experienced significant sales declines since the April 1 controversy. Budweiser was down 10 percent, while Natural Light and Michelob Ultra were down 2.3 and 2.4 percent, respectively.

“This has been a tough week for Bud Light and other beer brands,” said Bump Williams, owner of the consultancy.

Anheuser-Busch’s other brands — including Budweiser and Natural Light — have also experienced significant sales declines since the controversy with Mulvaney on April 1

Since the Anheuser-Busch scandal, the country’s second-biggest beer — Modelo — has risen quickly through the ranks, with sales up 5.7 percent in the week ending June 10.

Anheuser-Busch’s chief marketing officer, while accepting an award at an awards ceremony on Monday, said the partnership between Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney was a humble reminder that the company needs to better understand its consumers.

Ironically, Marcel Marcondes made the remarks while accepting an award for ‘Creative Marketer of the Year’ at Cannes Lions – a lavish industry conference in the south of France dubbed the ‘Oscars for the advertising industry’.

It comes months after the company lost $27 billion in value due to a campaign.

Although AB was named the winner of the award before the fiasco broke out, it was not officially awarded until Monday, which meant there was a mighty elephant in the room. Some even said the company should decline the award, the Wall Street Journal reported.

“In times like this, when things are so divisive and controversial, I think it’s an important wake-up call for all of us marketers to start with being very humble,” he said.

“That’s what we do, be very humble and really remind ourselves of what we should be doing best every day, which is really understanding our consumers.

“That’s to really celebrate and appreciate every consumer who loves our brands – but in a way that allows them to be together, not apart.”

The session was described in the programming notes as part conversation about AB InBev’s “unwavering focus on connecting with consumers in meaningful ways,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Budweiser fell 10 percent, while Natural Light and Michelob Ultra fell 2.3 and 2.4 percent, respectively

Marcondes has been with AB InBev for nearly two decades, according to his LinkedIn profile, and now oversees the global marketing strategies of AB brands, including Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA, Stella Artois and others.

“It’s hard to see the contentious and divisive debates that have taken place in the US in recent weeks involving many brands and companies, including and especially Bud Light,” Marcondes said during Monday’s presentation.

“It’s difficult, precisely because we’re all about bringing people together.”

“That’s what Bud Light is all about – it exists to make beer easy to drink and easy to enjoy,” he said.

“That is what we will all do as a team to move forward as a group. That’s what leaders do. Bud Light is coming back. It’s going across the country, reconnecting with consumers and moving forward. That’s what you can expect from Bud Light in the US.”

Anheuser-Busch’s global chief marketing officer Marcel Marcondes (pictured) said the Bud Light partnership with Mulvaney was a humble reminder that the company needs to better understand its consumers

Bud Light was accused of alienating their traditional customer base by partnering with Mulvaney

Modelo has seen an increase in sales since the Bud Light boycotts began

Bud Light’s historic decline came after it teamed up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a marketing campaign.

The hangover from the catastrophic advertising push has been going on since the collaboration was released in early April.

In the controversial promotion, 26-year-old Mulvaney posted a video of herself breaking open a Bud Light on her Instagram page on April 1.

She showed off the personalized can with her face on it – one of the many business freebies she gets and promotes to her millions of followers.

Bud Light was accused of alienating their traditional customer base by partnering with Mulvaney, which led many conservatives – including Kid Rock – to boycott the brand.

Conservatives pushed ahead with the boycott, leading the Belgium-based brewer to send two executives responsible for the partnership — Alissa Heinerscheid, its vice president of marketing, and her boss, Daniel Blake — on furlough in April.

Heinerscheid was hired in June 2022 to overhaul Bud Light’s marketing with a vision to refresh its image, while Blake spent nearly nine years at Anheuser-Busch.

Heinerscheid’s short-lived tenure reportedly included a critically acclaimed Super Bowl ad featuring Miles Teller and his wife Keleigh Sperry, as well as “the Bud Light Carry” campaign in which a woman carried a round of beer to a table of friends without spilling a drop . .

Those ads, statements by the beer brand revealed, were part of Heinerscheid’s vision to make the brand more female-friendly — something she described as a “passion point” just a few months ago.

But that vision was quickly shattered on April 3 when the brand partnered with Mulvaney, a controversial trans activist with a massive social media following, which proved to be a step too far for Bud Light’s loyal customers.

After Anheuser-Busch attempted to distance itself from the Mulvaney promotion, Bud Light also faced backlash from the opposite direction, with pro-LGBTQ groups accusing the company of abandoning the transgender influencer.