Things have not been going well for Bud Light since they stepped on the third rail of endorsing transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s “365 Days of Girlhood” at the beginning of April. We’re now into the fourth month of a punishing boycott that seems to have no end in sight for the company.
NielsenIQ sales data, obtained by Newsweek via industry consultancy firm Bump Williams Consulting, showed that over a four-week period ending July 1, Bud Light saw a 28 percent decrease in revenue sales. Bud Light’s volume—the number of units of beer sold—was down 31.2 percent compared with the same time last year.
They were booted out of the number-one beer-sold slot as well, with Modelo Especial rising to the top and now holding that place for the past two months.
Now they’ve even dropped out of the top ten most popular beers.
In fact, the brand has fallen off the list of the 10 most preferred beers in the U.S., according to a recent poll of American drinkers conducted by YouGov. Having been awarded ninth place in last year’s survey, it has tumbled to rank as the 15th most popular beer in the country.
The dip is being attributed to a boycott of the brand started on April 1.
The company doesn’t seem to understand how to dig themselves out of the mess that they’ve created. They keep putting out ads, like the one I wrote about earlier, that just show how clueless they are on the matter. The ad showed a storm during a picnic blowing over a Bud Light can and a woman devouring a watermelon, oblivious to the consequences of that storm. It was a perfect metaphor for the storm that hit the company and the oblivious way in which they responded.
But if new reports are accurate, they may be facing some more trouble from one of the biggest chains in the country, Costco.
Reports are now circulating, with pictures indicating some Bud Light products in some locations have gotten the “Death Star” from Costco. You can see what it is — the little asterisk in the upper right-hand corner of the sales description (click on the tweet to see the full image).
At Costco this morning, practically giving away Bud Light. pic.twitter.com/tsyymCZjT5
— colleen 🗣 (@plineytheelder) July 1, 2023
The number 97 in a price is another Costco code that indicates the product is being subjected to a big discount.
Even Costco is getting out of the game… pic.twitter.com/cUHE0CnPzr
— Brian Henderson (@aztraveldude) July 3, 2023
COSTCO says… STAR OF DEATH for Bud Light * it will not be restocked. 🍻 pic.twitter.com/hWYTXEckDA
— SHARKINTHEWATER (@s_h_a_r_k_e_y) July 11, 2023
The Death Star is a code that Costco uses to indicate that the product so marked is no longer going to be carried in the store.
It wasn’t clear where the stores were and if it applied to other Bud Light products than those marked, but the media was seeking an answer from Costco on the matter. It did seem to be on different Bud Light items in multiple different stores.
Based on your declining sales and market share, the best beer is literally anything else 🤣 pic.twitter.com/gceq3TPsXy
— Mandolango (@Chilango83) July 10, 2023
We’ll keep you updated on that report. But if Costco is no longer going to stock it, that would be a huge hit to the brand. Add one more hit to their continued plunge.
I don’t understand liberals. When this all hit the fan, all they had to do is say they made a mistake and they wouldn’t mix politics with their product again. But they are so afraid that the Sexual alphabet people will be upset. I thought businesses were created to sell a product and reward the people that invested time and money to achieve success. It appears businesses today have the controlling stock holders virtue signaling, while flushing the rest of the stock holders down the toilet.
AB promoting Dylan Mulvaney as one of their beer-drinking icons with his image on their product is not unlike promoting pedophiles as babysitters as another group of beer drinkers to be promoted and iconized with their images put on another set of beer cans. When do we get to see a Charles Manson, or a Jim Jones, set of beer cans coming out to promote cultists as a cultural phenomenon to be copied and followed? Are Antifa and BLM soon to follow?
These guys are like politicians: never admit you are wrong. Just keep spending and promoting until the next social movement comes along to move everybody into a different direction, and their error slips into the past.
AB is already aware that youthful beverage drinkers are moving away from beers and on towards flavored wines and liquors. And, like the Edsel, Bud Light will soon move out of sight and out of mind as well. That is just part of the relationship markets and products share.
What AB is missing in this fiasco is their breach of trust with their customer base. That is something that is not going away with the next product cycle. AB has spent decades promoting an image of the American male as a proud, independent, singular, take charge type of individual with a western image. An image to be respected.
AB has now reduced that American male image into a being – Mulvaney – with some serious mental health issues, who has no sense of his own self, biological or otherwise, trying to make himself into something he is not. That image is no longer male, he is no longer confident in himself or those around him, he can’t take charge of his own self, and is trying to remake himself into something else – a female. Not a winning message. Not an image to be iconized, followed or respected. No, AB, no pedophiles will ever be babysitting the children in my house.
And, pay attention, AB, this market reaction to your foul message is not a boycott. A boycott is a tool, a tool to achieve a result. It is not a result by itself. You have positioned your product, Bud Light, into something that is to be avoided. That is a result. And it is a bad result.