Who would have thought?
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/bud-light-suffers-bloodbath-longtime-loyal-consumers-revolt-transgender-campaign
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/bud-light-suffers-bloodbath-longtime-loyal-consumers-revolt-transgender-campaign
Quote:
Bud Light suffered a bloodbath this past weekend.
Consumers nationwide revolted against the nation's top-selling beer brand after it stepped "recklessly" into the culture wars last week with its new spokesperson, transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney, according to bar owners and beer-industry experts around the country.
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But even Fitter's bar witnessed a catastrophic decrease in sales of the hometown suds among loyal and local consumers this week.
Sales of Anheuser-Busch bottled products dropped 30% over the past week, while draught beer plummeted 50%, the owner said.
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Similar stories are found around the country.
Bud Light normally outsells rival products Miller Lite and Coors Light 25 to 1 at Braintree Brewhouse in Massachusetts, a sprawling sports bar just outside Boston.
Not this week.
Eighty percent of Bud Light drinkers ordered something else this week, Brewhouse owner Alex Kesaris said while the 20% who did order Bud Light "weren't on social media and hadn't heard yet" about its new transgender pitch person.
"They didn't order it again," he said, after other patrons told them about the Bud Light marketing misfire.
One pub in Hell's Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood known for its large and vocal gay community, reported that Bud Light draft sales dropped 58% this week, while Bud Light bottle sales were down 70%.
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He cited a nightmare scenario for Bud Light sales reps in Texas, where the brand has for years has sponsored a large weekly dart league with 100-plus players each Thursday night.
The bar typically sells though three kegs of Bud Light at the event a total of 495 12-ounce pours.
The bar sold only four 12-ounce Bud Light bottles this week, as the dart players held a mass protest against their league sponsor.
"They've already done enough damage in one week to disrupt year-long sales projections," a beer-sales representative who works with national beer retailers such as Costco told FOX Business. "You don't just make up those sales. People aren't going to drink twice as much Bud Light the following weekend to recover the lost business." For a brand as large as Bud Light, the public relations calamity already represents millions of lost dollars even if the consumer revolt ended tomorrow.