The Numbers Are In: We Finally Know How Much Damage Bud Light Boycott Did to Anheuser-Busch and It's Brutal
In a culture wherein the most effective means most people have of making their voices heard is their wallets, many people, left and right, often proclaim they will boycott a company they don’t agree with.
However, boycotts often either fail to garner much support, or consumers eventually forget about their resolution when it gets too hard.
With Bud Light, however, conservatives have done massive damage to the company in the wake of its brief, ill-conceived partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, from which its parent company, Anheuser-Busch, may never recover.
And now that damage comes with a price tag.
According to a report in CNN, Bud Light has lost what may be a staggering $1.4 billion in the wake of the American boycott.
Anheuser-Busch executives tried to put a brave face on the loss, with CEO Michel Doukeris saying that their slow recovery is “not at the fast pace that we were expecting or that we’ve been working for.”
“But nevertheless, progress is in place,” he added.
Other analysts were not reassured by his positive spin.
One equity analyst, Aarin Chiekrie, told CNN that, “in the U.S., performance remains very underwhelming with revenue down at double-digit rates as the group lost market share.”
Fortune didn’t have much positive insight either, reporting that the problems plaguing the company in 2023 are only following it into 2024.
U.S. sales dropped by 9.5 percent in the past year, and the resolution of a potential Teamster’s strike was some of the only good news the company has received in almost a year.
Are there any other brands in American history that have fallen so precipitously and so catastrophically at the height of their power?
For two decades, Bud Light was the number one beer in America, the self-proclaimed “king of beers.” After sponsoring Mulvaney, it took only a matter of months to lose that spot to Modelo Especial.
Clearly, the company’s brief flirtation with a wildly progressive agenda has proved catastrophic, damaging Bud Light significantly, if not permanently, in the U.S.
Thanks to publicly endorsing a disordered ideology that most Americans find repugnant, Bud Light is becoming a cautionary tale, as well as a mediocre beer most Americans now avoid like the plague.
Tragic as the outcome may be for Anheuser-Busch, they can at least provide a great lesson for other companies and businesses tempted to sell out to progressive ideology.
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