Vendors who work for independent wholesalers who sell Anheuser-Busch beverages are feeling the pain in their wallets from Bud Light’s continued boycott after collaborating with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Bud Light sales have fallen for seven straight weeks after controversial TikToker’s product recommendation was met with immediate backlash.
The partnership sparked protests and backlash, and parent company Anheuser-Busch has lost $26 billion in value in just months.
The financial blow that the company continues to endure is affecting all distribution channels.
Earnings have been reduced for the salespeople who work at the approximately 500 independent wholesalers who sell Anheuser-Busch products to restaurants, bars and supermarkets.
Some reported losing $2,000 last month compared to the typical month of May due to the backlash.
Bud Light has been boycotted since working with Dylan Mulvaney in April, leading to a drop in sales
Bud Light has been trying to win back consumers, with no luck, and now some say they’ve lost commissions because of declining sales
Since partnering with Mulvaney, Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, has lost $26 billion in value
Former Anhesuer-Busch InBev – AB’s parent company – recently told CEO Anson Frericks ABC news the product boycott is undoubtedly causing financial pain for the thousands of salespeople who work for wholesalers that rely largely on performance-based rewards.
Compensation for salespeople varies between distributors and markets, but according to Frericks, a typical salesperson earns about $60,000 a year, including $20,000 in variable pay, which depends largely on commission.
“Good people will leave because they don’t make money,” he told ABC.
An anonymous supervisor for a Florida-based distributor told the outlet that the average salesperson made about $2,000 less in the month of May than they normally would have based on numbers from the past few years.
The numbers are primarily affected by a decline in Bud Light sales, which fell as much as 60 percent in the week ending Memorial Day.
“This really, really killed a lot of the guys who work on commission. That’s who it really hurts. There was nothing they could have done – this was thrown in their faces,” said the overseer.
Michel Doukeris, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev, pointed out the stain the boycott has placed on distributors and sellers during an earnings call last month.
“This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: the delivery drivers, vendors, our wholesalers, Bud owners and servers,” he said.
‘These people form the fabric of our company. They are our neighbours, relatives and friends. They are in every community in America. We have done everything we can to support our teams.”
Doukeris also said Anheuser-Busch InBev provided financial assistance to front-line workers at its independent distributors, giving each employee $500 and additional advertising spend for the month of May.
A statement from the company read: ‘Anheuser-Busch employs more than 18,000 people and our independent wholesale partners have an additional 47,000 valued colleagues. The current situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers, including delivery drivers and sales representatives.
“These people are our neighbors, relatives and friends. They are in every community in America. As we move forward, we will continue to do everything we can to support our teams while working tirelessly on what we do best: bringing people together over a beer.”
Despite the efforts of Bud Light and CEO Michel Doukeris, the brand has not seen a sales recovery since partnering with Mulvaney.
About two months ago, Mulvaney posted the digital content to her accounts to coincide with the NCAA March Madness tournament — joking that she wasn’t even sure what sport she was promoting.
The campaign was the brainchild of Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, who was put on leave shortly after the incident. Her boss, Daniel Blake, the Budweiser group’s vice president of marketing, was also relieved of his role in the resistance.
For the week ending May 20, Bud Light sales in the US were down nearly 26 percent compared to the same period last year. For the week ending May 6, retail sales plummeted 23.6 percent. And the week before, ending April 29, sales were down 23.3 percent.
This follows declines in sales in the week ending April 22, which saw a 21.4 percent decline. Seven days earlier, the dip was 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.
The data – which shows Bud Light sales in the US are dropping by as much as 20 percent per week – is uniformly viewed by industry experts as a negative trend that may not reverse anytime soon.
Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the “entire industry is in shock.”
He claimed that the renewed demand for bearings not owned by Anheuser-Bush could lead to a trickle down effect on the industry.
He said, “Even Bud’s competitors don’t really dance on the grave because they know it could have happened to them.”