Brewing company Anheuser-Busch has seen a staggering $4 billion wiped from its value amid the backlash over Bud Light’s new ad campaign featuring transgender Dylan Mulvaney. The beermaker has suffered a bloodbath in sales over the controversy that has seen music stars, sports fans, bars, liquor stores, and events boycotting its products.
Consumers nationwide have been revolting against the nation’s top-selling beer brand after it stepped “recklessly” into the culture wars last week, according to bar owners and beer-industry experts around the country.
The crisis deepened over the weekend when a video emerged of Bud Light’s marketing executive trashing the company’s customer base and gloating about her efforts to turn the brand “woke,” as Slay News reported.
“I think society flexes it muscles sometimes and reminds manufacturers that the consumer is still in charge,” Jeff Fitter, owner of Case & Bucks, a restaurant and sports bar in Barnhart, Missouri, told Fox Business.
“In Bud Light’s effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else, including their traditional audience.”
He cited sports fans, working people, and women as loyal Bud Light consumers who the brand suddenly excluded in its race to go “woke.”
Reports have been emerging from across the country of Bud Light sales being hit hard by boycotts.
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.
However, eighty percent of Bud Light drinkers ordered something else over the past week, Brewhouse owner Alex Kesaris said.
The 20% who did order Bud Light “weren’t on social media and hadn’t heard yet” about its new transgender pitch person, Kesaris noted.
After other patrons told them about the Bud Light marketing misfire, “they didn’t order it again,” he said.
Similar stories are found around the country.
In response to the backlash, stock for Anheuser-Busch InBev dipped on Monday.
TheStreet, a financial news website, reported that stock for Anheuser-Busch InBev was lower by 3 percent on Monday.
However, the outlet also reported that the drop comes following “a 10-day win streak, which vaulted Anheuser-Busch stock to 52-week highs.”
The marketing campaign featuring Mulvaney as the new brand ambassador was launched on April 1.
On March 31, Anheuser-Busch’s market capitalization was $132.38 billion.
As of Monday, April 10, the company’s market cap had sunk to $128.4 billion.
The figures suggest that the boycotts over the “woke” Mulvaney campaign have wiped $4B off the company’s value.
On March 31, Anheuser Busch had a $132.38 billion market cap
As of today, it’s now $128.4 billion
You know what that means?
The Woke Bud Light campaign has already shaved off nearly **$4 BILLION** in company value
Don’t let Dems lie to you – Conservative Boycotts WORK pic.twitter.com/xLGbs6F1MV
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) April 10, 2023
Anheuser-Busch’s stock price over the past week… #GoWokeGoBroke pic.twitter.com/kSTwBExeeQ
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) April 10, 2023
“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.”