Although Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), the parent company of Bud Light, reported a substantial Q1 earnings beat on Thursday, sales of Bud Light continue to fall one year after a marketing campaign featuring a transgender sparked a boycott of their product in April 2023.
While the company experienced a 2.6 percent uptick in revenue to $14.55 billion, mainly due to higher prices, the volume sold saw a marginal decrease of 0.6 percent. A significant portion of the slump came from North America, where a 9.9 percent volume decline was observed, largely driven by falling Bud Light sales.
“We’ve lost a whole generation of hardcore Bud Light shoppers,” said Bump Williams of Bump Williams Consulting. “It’s going to take us at least 10 years to try and recapture what we lost in one year.”
Over the last month, Bud Light sales are down 27.1 percent from a year ago, while Miller Lite is up 7.8 percent and Coors Light grew by 15.3 percent.
“We think a lot of consumers are never going back … but some are coming back,” said CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson. “The longer-term impact, I think [we won’t know] until we see their second quarter results,” he continued.
Bud Light caused outrage when it featured transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney in a promotional campaign. The backlash was immediate and widespread, with more than half of Americans — including nearly a third of Democrats — supporting the boycott. This year, brand tried to salvage its image with a massive Super Bowl ad spend, however the campaign was an utter failure.
