Former Anheuser-Busch exec warns Bud Light sales figures will ‘get worse and worse’ until brand ‘makes a comment about what customers they’re going to serve’ amid Dylan Mulvaney backlash
- America’s flagship beer has been in damage control since partnering with the trans influencer in April
- Bud Light sales fell for the fifth successive week as people continue to boycott it
- Former Anheuser-Busch executive Anson Frericks believes Bud Light’s sales will continue to sink until it emphasizes which customers they are going to serve
A former Anheuser-Busch executive has warned that Bud Light sales will get ‘worse and worse’ until the brand makes clear what it stands for following the disastrous partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
America’s flagship beer brand has been in damage control since Mulvaney shared a series of partnered posts with her 11 million social media followers on April 1.
Bud Light sales fell for the fifth successive week as people continue to boycott it following the controversial collaboration and they were down by nearly 24 per cent in the week ending May 6.
Anson Frericks believes the brewer’s sales will continue to sink until it comes out and emphasizes which customers they are going to serve.
The disastrous marketing bid with Mulvaney has seen sales for the American flagship beer plummet by as much as 20 percent week-on-week.
‘Consumers feel like they’re having an impact. And every single week these sales numbers are being reported, and they’re getting worse and worse every single week,’ Frericks told the Varney & Co show on Fox Business.
‘So I see this continuing to drag on until Bud Light makes a comment about what they stand for and what customers they’re going to serve.
‘With Bud Light, that was never part of the brand or part of the message. And I think that’s what’s upset so many people here.
‘And that’s why I think this boycott is going to go on a lot longer than people give it credit for.’
For the week ending May 6, in-store sales of Bud Light across the US were down 23.6 percent compared to the year before. 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 were at 21.4 percent. And seven days earlier, the dip was 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.
Bud Light’s marketing vice president Alissa Heinerscheid and Daniel Blake, Anheuser-Busch vice president for mainstream brands, took a leave of absence following the controversial partnership with Mulvaney.
The company tried to explain that a ‘third-party ad agency’ was responsible for the collaboration and that it did not plan to sell the can.
It released a new country-based advert which aired during the NFL draft on April 27 and is set to launch a collection of camouflage aluminum bottles to promote the ‘Folds of Honor’ program, according to the New York Post.
The charity provides scholarships to the children of fallen and disabled service members and first responders.
But Frericks doesn’t see the company’s attempts to claw back sales working and said: ‘One thing that they haven’t done is say they made a mistake with this campaign and been clear about who they’re going to serve moving forward.
‘Is it going to be their shareholders and their customers who want them just to create a Bud Light that’s apolitical, or are they going to be serving their stakeholders?
‘These are the people that want BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, who are asking them to serve political organizations, activists.
‘I think until they’re clear and they make it clear that they want to serve their customers moving forward, unfortunately, I don’t see this going away.’