Desperate Bud Light Is Now Literally Giving Beer Away as Mulvaney Backlash Continues: Report
A disastrous marketing deal with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney has left Anheuser-Busch reeling — to the extent they’re giving away free cases of Bud Light.
The beer producer is giving away the drinks to distributors in a bid to reverse sharply declining sales, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Consumers have quickly cooled on the producer’s Bud Light beer in the wake of the partnership — in which Mulvaney promoted himself with personalized cans of the beverage last month.
Bud Light’s partnership with controversial transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney has completely backfired on the company, which attempted to court a younger demographic. The boycott is, indeed, working.
Citing declining sales, Marketing VP Alissa Heinerscheid claimed that Bud… pic.twitter.com/VE7ZPBKYMl
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 26, 2023
The beer’s consumer base — many of them with conservative and traditional sympathies — began an impromptu boycott of the brand, which appears to be having a significant effect on the company.
Musician Kid Rock even filmed himself shooting up a stack of Bud Light.
WARNING: The following tweet contains language some readers may find offensive.
— KidRock (@KidRock) April 4, 2023
Retail store sales of the beer brand declined by 21 percent during the week of April 22 — all the while sales of competitors Coors Light and Miller Lite increased by the same amount, according to the Wall Street Journal.
An employee of one of Anheuser-Busch’s distributors is openly admitting that the marketing disaster is taking a toll on his own company’s business.
“It sent shock waves through distributors,” Jeff Wheeler told the Wall Street Journal of the Mulvaney partnership.
Wheeler is the vice president of marketing for Del Papa Distributing, a Houston, Texas-area company.
Wheeler says his own employees — who don’t work for Anheuser-Busch — have fielded “tons of phone calls from people being very hateful.”
Del Papa even released a statement criticizing Anheuser-Busch for its decision to work with Mulvaney — a business decision that jeopardized its distributors, many of them much smaller companies.
Anheuser-Busch responded to distributor discontent by sending a free case of Bud Light for each of the smaller companies’ employees, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The beverage giant’s executives emphasized that Mulvaney’s use of personalized cans bearing his image didn’t amount to a formal marketing campaign.
“This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement,” Anheuser-Busch told distributors in a letter.
“Our new vice president of Bud Light and all of us at Anheuser-Busch are committed to reminding all of our consumers why they love Bud Light and why they’ve made it the #1 beer in America.”
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