Posted originally on the CTH on June 6, 2023 | Sundance 

Memorial Day customarily kicks off summer and the beer beverage industry generally looks forward to the enhanced sales that come from summer.  However, if the recently published reports of Anheuser-Busch sales are accurate, which includes a stunning 60% sales drop during the holiday, the brand position of Bud Light is in freefall.

While the impacts do have a regional trend based on consumer boycotts and patterns, when the Daily Mail reports, “numbers are suffering primarily due to a decline in Bud Light sales that reached as high as a 60 percent drop off over the week that ended on Memorial Day,” we can be certain the executive offices of A/B are watching closely. The feedback from wholesalers and distributors to the parent company must be something beyond alarm.

Worse still, the forward-looking data trend doesn’t offer any hope.  Things are getting worse for the parent company.

(Daily Mail) – […] For the week ending May 20, Bud Light sales across the US fell nearly 26 percent compared to the same period last year. For the week ending May 6, in-store sales plummeted 23.6 percent. And the week before that, ending April 29, sales dropped by 23.3 percent.

This follows declines in sales for the week ending April 22, which saw a 21.4 percent decline. Seven days earlier, the dip has been 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.

The data – showing that US sales of Bud Light are dropping by as much as 20 percent each week – is being uniformly viewed by industry experts as a negative trend that may not reverse itself anytime soon.

Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the ‘whole industry is in shock’. (read more)

It is safe to say the Bud Light brand is now firmly connected to the image of transgender ideology. As a result, it would appear that anyone who holds a Bud Light beverage is essentially identifying themselves as a transvestite pickle-puffer, and that could potentially draw considerable side-eyes from anyone in a public place outside the region of San Francisco, California.

As further noted by the New York Post, “Demand for Bud Light over the crucial Memorial Day weekend — the official kickoff of the summer beer buying season — was lukewarm with many store shelves still holding cases of the once mighty beer, Williams said after a spot check of local stores.  At least one store was trying to unload a 24-pack of Bud Light for just $3.49, according to Beer Business Daily.”

Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michel Doukeris reportedly addressed the ongoing boycott’s impact on delivery drivers, salespeople, and wholesalers on a recent earnings call. It is a little bit odd to see A/B positioning themselves as victims of their customers.

“This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: The delivery drivers, sales representatives, our wholesalers, Bud owners and servers,” Doukeris said, according to ABC News. “These people are the fabric of our business. They are our neighbors, family members, and friends. They are in every community in America. We’ve been doing everything we can to support our teams.”

It would appear that Anheuser-Busch the corporation, are refusing to accept or acknowledge their responsibility in creating this crisis for their brand.  The brand image issue was not forced upon them.  These were decisions made by the marketing division of the company, and now they place blame for the consequences on their customers.

Every time, in every story, in every print and broadcast update, as the ongoing events are told or written – every visual aide that accompanies the news includes that weird guy with the Bud Light beer in his hand.  This is now a bizarre marketing self-fulfilling prophecy. The articles and news telling updates to the story are now optically affirming the Bud Light brand as a beverage exclusively for transgenders.

This level of ongoing public relations failure is something for the record books.  I wonder if Target Inc is paying attention.