Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney fiasco cost Anheuser-Busch more than $1B in sales last year
NY Post
Bud Light-parent Anheuser-Busch InBev may have lost more than $1 billion in sales because of its ill-fated advertisement featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
In North America, organic revenue — seen as the best measure of operating performance — nosedived a staggering $1.4 billion in 2023, “primarily due to the volume declined of Bud Light,” according to CNN, citing the brewer’s fourth-quarter earnings report.
Global volumes declined 4% in the quarter, though in North America, they fell more than 15% in the last three months of 2023 compared to the year-ago period as the boycott against Bud Light persisted.
A huge share of Bud Light’s consumer base stopped buying the once-most popular brew in early April 2023 — when Mulvaney shared an Instagram post of a custom Bud Light can Anheuser-Busch sent her to celebrate “365 Days of Girlhood.”
Subsequent posts were of Mulvaney cracking open a can of Bud Light in honor of March Madness.
The boycott also hurt the 65,000 employees and Anheuser-Busch distributors, who were thrust to the front lines of the backlash, including being mocked and threatened with car horns, cursing, and a declining income as cases of unsold Bud Light expired on liquor store shelves.
