Bud Light suffered its fifth straight week of worsening sales declines since the Dylan Mulvaney controversy began, casting doubt on whether the mega-brand can recover as the crucial summer beer-drinking season begins.
Bud Light retail sales fell 23.6% year-over-year in the week ending May 6 — slightly worse than the 23.3% drop in the week ending April 29, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting and data from NielsenIQ.
Sales of other Anheuser-Busch brands also continued to fall, albeit at a slower pace than the previous week. These included Budweiser, down 9.7% from an 11.4% drop a week earlier; Michelob Ultra, 2.9% down from 4.3%; and natural light, down 2.5% from 5.2% last week.
“This seems to be where the brand’s weekly declines are starting to settle in, with a -20% drop in recent weeks,” Bump Williams, CEO of the consultancy, said of Bud Light. “I wonder if this is going to be the ‘floor’.”
Meanwhile, rival beer brands competing with Bud Light — the No. 1 beer in the U.S., which generated $4.8 billion in sales last year — are grabbing market share faster as Anheuser-Busch grapples with the fallout from its ill-fated connection to the transgender community. influencer that launched on April 1.
Pabst Blue Ribbon sales were up 21.6% in the week ending May 6 – slightly up from the previous week’s peak of 18.9%. According to data from Bump Williams and NielsenIQ, Miller High Life sales increased 10.4% compared to an increase of 8.3% in the same period the week before.
“I think the Bud Light drinker is waiting for a sincere and heartfelt apology from [Anheuser-Busch] and crystal clear communication about exactly what happened and how important the Bud Light drinkers are to the [company]’ Williams said.
But some question whether this and other promotions will be enough to reverse the extremely negative public sentiment towards Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light in particular.
The company “is running out of time to fix the issue as the summer sales season unofficially started last weekend and Memorial Day is two weeks away,” Williams said.
Last week, the company held a meeting with distributors at its US headquarters in St. Louis to discuss its strategy for dealing with the backlash, The Post learned. One of the planned new initiatives is a temporary redesign of the Budweiser and Bud Light aluminum bottles, according to a distributor who declined to be named.
Anheuser-Busch will produce bottles with a camouflage print and graphics of the “Folds of Honor” program, which provides scholarships to children and spouses of fallen or disabled U.S. military and first responders, the executive said.
The redesign is part of Anheuser-Busch’s effort to invest heavily in the brand this spring and summer, the Post reported. The company kicked off the blitz during the NFL draft in late April.
In some supermarkets in New York, the company this weekend offered customers a free T-shirt with the “Ultra Mom” logo for anyone who bought Michelob Ultra products.
Other likely marketing strategies, experts speculate, include discounting the beer in stores and investing heavily in sports marketing, and including the U.S. military and country and western music, farmers, law enforcement and first responders in their ads.
Beer drinkers across the country have expressed outrage at Anheuser-Busch for tapping Mulvaney to promote Bud Light. The brewery’s core customers chose not to order Bud Light from bars and restaurants—and more recently, other beer brands Anheuser-Busch owns—or pick up cartons and six-packs from grocery stores.
The LGBTQ community has also denounced Anheuser-Busch for withdrawing from the promotion and failing to defend its decision to join Mulvaney.
Anheuser-Busch last month sent two marketing executives — Alissa Heinerscheid, its vice president of marketing, and her boss, Daniel Blake — on leave.
Earlier this month, Bud Light’s parent Anheuser-Busch chief executive, Michel Doukeris, denied working with Mulvaney.
“We need to clarify the facts that this was one look, one influencer, one post and not a campaign,” Doukeris told investors during an earnings call.
