Bud Light has lost over $400 million since it went woke by teaming up with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for an a partnership back in April. Now, things have gotten even worse for the beer brand, as experts are warning that Bud Light will likely lose crucial shelf space in stores this fall.
This isn’t a parody. Dylan Mulvaney is now the face of Bud Light. pic.twitter.com/cpygA74cG5
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 2, 2023
Bud Light In Big Trouble
“During a busy shopping period on a Friday or Saturday night, if you don’t have the beer available cold on the shelf, consumers pick something else,” former Anheuser-Busch InBev executive Anson Frericks told ABC News. He added that shelf space is “the single largest determinant of sales in a store.”
“There will be a dramatic shift,” Frericks continued.
Dave Williams, vice president of analytics and insights at Bump Williams Consulting, explained that retailers watch sales to see which brands should get the best shelf space.
“There’s explosive growth on one side and sharp decline on the other,” Williams stated. “This does have that ripple effect where if Bud Light loses space on the shelf, that could make it a longer-term endeavor to claw back to where they were if they’re ever able to do that in the first place. You’ve got to be on the shelf first to be selling.”
Stopped by WOKE Target to see their Bud Light stock.
I figured since they’re a woke store, they’d have a HUGE display.
Looks like they’ve basically lost all their shelf space.
Anyone who knows merchandising knows shelf space is very important to any product.
This means the… pic.twitter.com/hX5LZMijEU
— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) June 17, 2023
‘The Boycott Has Lasted Longer Than Anybody Thought’
Carlos Laboy, a beverage industry analyst for HSBC, claimed that Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch has seen revenue decline by at least 33%. This has led wholesalers to cut back services and frequency of visits to retailers, which will only further hurt Bud Light’s sales.
“Expect more wholesaler cutbacks now,” he added.
A general manager at an Anheuser-Busch distributor in Wisconsin who did not wish to be named admitted that the shelf resets at retailers “could be an issue,” however, he went on to allege that they are not expecting a “drastic change.”
“The boycott has lasted longer than anybody thought,” the general manager said. “Every retailer has their own opinion for what sales warrant on their shelves. Time will tell.”
Bud Light Losing Shelf Space At Major Retailers Like Walmart And 7-Eleven
Bud Light’s sales have been crumbling for months because of the fallout from their disastrous partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.
The annual reset of shelf space is coming in the fall at major retailers,… pic.twitter.com/NY4okknFss
— Dēmiurgòs (@DemiurgosCaen) September 17, 2023
Mulvaney Debacle
This all started back in April, when Mulvaney revealed that Bud Light had sent her packs of Bud Light featuring the influencer’s face as a way to celebrate a full year of “girlhood.” Mulvaney went so far as to describe the beer cans as her “most prized possession” on Instagram with a post that featured the hashtag “#budlightpartner.”
This immediately backfired on Bud Light when conservatives launched a boycott of the beer brand that proved to be highly effective. Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev reported that profits plummeted after the boycott, with U.S. revenue dropping 10.5% in the second quarter as earnings before taxes, interest and depreciation declined by 28.2%.
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“These things are fluid,” said Gerald Pascarelli, a beer industry analyst at Wedbush. “It depends on where consumer preference is and what trends are. They will change.”
Bud Light Risks Losing Retail Shelf Space if They’re Unable to Reverse Plunging Sales.
How? Apologize, fire those responsible and rebuild the connection with the 98%. pic.twitter.com/uNskkKuPcH
— Mark Nantz (@BullseyeBanjo) June 6, 2023
Related: Dylan Mulvaney ‘Feels Guilty’ Over Bud Light Backlash – ‘Wakeup Call’
‘The Bud Light Situation Has Actually Gotten Worse’
Beer Business Daily publisher Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News last week that things are only looking more bleak for Bud Light moving forward.
“The Bud Light situation has actually gotten worse,” he said. “You see Bud Light still just stubbornly down around 30% in volume compared to last year, which is where it’s been since May or June. That tells me that this is quasi-permanent, meaning those consumers are just lost forever.”
Coors Light is decimating Bud Light sales at Raleys in Central Valley California. They expanded Coors space and can’t keep it on the shelf. Men are embarrassed to buy Bud Light #BudLight #Budweiser #Woke pic.twitter.com/RVnhfpUtgD
— Knight Ronin 🇺🇸 (@PhilipH27605846) May 2, 2023
It’s safe to say that both Mulvaney and Bud Light have learned the hard way that “go woke, go broke” is very real indeed. Other brands should take notice and think twice before going woke and teaming up with someone like Mulvaney in the future!
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While beer doesn’t mesh with my lifestyle anymore, I always hated Bud Light. Absolutely detested it. I would even choose PBR over that HP…
I doubt anyone is embarrassed about buying beer, pi##ed off with Bud Light and not able to tell the difference with a rival brand is more likely.
I don’t understand why the shelf space is suddenly in danger after six months. In Britain that would be in a week. After six months it would be out the door. A supermarket here turns its stock around every week on a day to day/product basis.
A regional manager will visit every week or so and rearrange their shelvage with the local store management’s advice.
Britain’s roads are some of the most heavily used in the world and vehicles limited to 20 tons of supplies per delivery worked out for some produce, weeks in advance
STOP WOMANS SUFFARAGE! We just got male chauvanists permission in 1920 to vote 1941 The woman’s Work act more male insult & now 365 days to be a woman! Woman still don’t get =pay or rights! These nut jobs w a penis w their delusional female fantasies can GO TO THE BACK of the Rosa Park bus! Heck woman in the middle east still not allowed to drive! Pure Evil Chauvanists men! REAL MEN W BALLS Protect their gift from God, moms, sisters, daughters, spouses!
Cool it, Renata.
There is already too much drama between the sexes.
We are not under Sharia law here.
Much of the wage problem in the US is because many jobs men do are extremely dangerous and highly paid for that reason. While skilled work knows no gender, the well-paid combination of skill and strength will always favor men. This is true even in woman-dominated fields like nursing.
Name any place that pays a man a higher wage for doing the same work as a woman.
This is a now-dead issue.
Who we should be fighting is the LBGQTXYZ crowd and those who support them because they are the ones who are completely cancelling women. And all of you old feminists are silent about while still bashing men. Shameful.
I do not think an apology would even work at this point. They have waited too long. Nor has Bud Light even admitted that putting a man on a can to celebrate “girlhood” was an insult to men and women. They traded all of this market just to appease the trans market. Bud made their choice.
Bud LIght is toast.. I don’t see it surviving, let alone ever recapturing its leading position as “THe King of Beers”, BUT there was one sure way Budweiser could have salvaged their position early on – Let’s face it, this was the “brainchild” of Alissa Heinerscheid, who not only “recruited” Dylan Mulvaney but who then embarked on numerous public appearances hyping the beer’s appeal to the trans community while denigrating its core constituency. The moment this issue exploded, Bud should have fired her, denounced her actions, and made her the scapegoat and target for their customers’ wrath. Instead, like the gutless worms they are, management protedted and coddled her and now her acticns are theirs and they are reaping the rewards. If I’d been AB’s CEO, I’d have renamed her “Heiner-Scheiss” and tossed her to the wolves. AB, instead, rallied round and protected their protege instead of their product. Now they deserve to wither away and die.
There’s a lesson here: People choose beer the way they choose cars, dogs, and other things with character. They choose what matches their image of themselves. The lesson is: Don’t mess with people’s image of their beer.
Seems like a no brainer. Apologize to the millions of men and women that previously bought your brand. Then, fire every one of these appeasers that thought hiring a man pretending to be a woman was a great idea to be inclusive. Congratulations on being total clueless when it comes to pleasing your customer base. Be stupid, and you will see your shrinking market share go to zero. Wake up! No woke crap.
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 AB 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 – an individual 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 he 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. A boycott is not a result by itself. You have positioned your product, Bud Light, into something that, like the pedophile, is to be avoided. That is a result. And it is a bad result.
That was a masterpiece statement, MJ.
Just a personal opinion, but calling that ‘person’ a SHE is INSULTING to REAL women like myself! Call HIM a HIM or IT, I don’t care. But DO NOT call that creature a ‘SHE’!!
I haven’t bought a Bud Lite since this kerfuffel happened. And likely will not ever do so. Companies need to learn that their company politics matter with their customers. They can’t simply follow any social trend and get away with it. Their customers will hold them accountable through sales in the market.
It is a Just reward for their arrogance in believing that they can figuratively spit in the eye of their customer and not pay a penalty for it.
What is an influencer? Are people too stupid to make up their own minds about things?
Increasingly.