(PatriotWise.com) — Various grocery stores selling Bud Light beer are reportedly considering reducing the shelf space they provide to the alcohol brand due to a boycott that hurt the beer company’s public image. The boycott started after Bud Light hired Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman with a massive social media following, as a spokesperson for the renowned alcohol brand. After Mulvaney began advertising Bud Light products, consumers started criticizing the brand’s executives, claiming they didn’t understand their core audience.
Bud Light hired Dylan Mulvaney as a partner in April 2023, when it sent Mulvaney a custom-made Bud Light for the influencer to celebrate reaching the 365th day of being a woman. Shortly after the initial partnership, Mulvaney began posting various videos featuring Bud Light beer and talking about how Bud Light is a transgender-friendly beer company. The social media posts quickly sparked a boycott from conservatives and received heavy media coverage for several weeks following the controversy.
The boycott quickly made national headlines, resulting in Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, losing significant profits and public trust. The beer company promptly released a statement about the Dylan Mulvaney controversy, claiming it wouldn’t fire Mulvaney and instead planned on shifting its marketing strategy. After the boycott continued for several weeks, the company quietly parted ways with Mulvaney. Anheuser-Busch searched for a new spokesperson to represent the brand, ultimately collaborating with controversial comedian Shane Gillis.
Although Anheuser-Busch wants to regain its public image as a blue-collar beer distributor, grocery stores plan on rearranging inventory to provide more shelf space for beers that sell. Among the beers that consumers can expect to see more often in grocery businesses is Modello, which became the best-selling beer in the United States after Anheuser-Busch lost its number-one spot following the Dylan Mulvaney scandal. In some areas, businesses plan on reducing Bud Light’s shelf space by approximately 20%.
Despite the loss in profits, Anheuser-Busch released a statement claiming that Bud Light remains one of the top-selling beers in the United States, indicating that the decline in sales performance was only temporary. The boycott resulted in Anheuser-Busch losing over $1 billion in revenue, with a decrease of almost 10% throughout 2023. Bud Light only recently began regaining customers last month, nearly an entire year after the Dylan Mulvaney scandal began. Bud Light remains one of the top beers in the United States but could suffer more lost business from the lower amount of shelf space provided to the beer distributor by various grocery stores.
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