Bud Light faces significant drop in sales as nationwide backlash grows over transgender activism

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Bud Light experienced a significant drop in sales this past weekend as consumers across the country revolted against the top-selling beer brand for its controversial choice of a new spokesperson, transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney.

Bar owners and beer industry experts around the nation believe that Bud Light's decision to step "recklessly" into the culture wars has led to a severe decline in sales, Fox News reported.

Jeff Fitter, owner of Case & Bucks, a restaurant and sports bar in Barnhart, Missouri, told Fox Business that Bud Light's attempt to be inclusive excluded almost everyone else, including its traditional audience of sports fans, working people and women.

Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Bud Light and headquartered in nearby St. Louis, has seen a considerable decrease in sales of the beer among loyal and local consumers at bars and restaurants around the country.

For example, Bud Light typically outsells rival products Miller Lite and Coors Light 25 to 1 at Braintree Brewhouse in Massachusetts, a sports bar just outside Boston. However, this week, 80% of Bud Light drinkers ordered something else, while the remaining 20% who did order Bud Light "weren’t on social media and hadn’t heard yet" about its new transgender spokesperson.

A pub in Hell’s Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood known for its large and vocal gay community, reported that Bud Light draft sales dropped 58% this week, while Bud Light bottle sales were down 70%. A national beer-industry analyst told Fox Business that Bud Light's decision to dive into the culture wars defied "virtually every rule in building brands and marketing."

A beer-sales representative who works with national beer retailers such as Costco told the outlet that the damage done in just one week is enough to disrupt year-long sales projections. The representative pointed out that people won't drink twice as much Bud Light the following weekend to recover the lost business.

The public relations disaster already represents millions of lost dollars for a brand as large as Bud Light. As detailed by Rebel News, Bud Light vice president of marketing Alissa Heinerscheid said in a March 30 interview with the "Make Yourself At Home" podcast that she was inspired to update the "fratty" and "out-of-touch" humor of the beer company with "inclusivity."