Bud Light sales dropping up to 20% week-over-week could become the ‘new normal’ after Dylan Mulvaney’s disastrous debacle.
Industry analysts have warned that unless something drastically changes, the negative volume trends will continue through the summer months, due to the beer brand’s partnership with the transgender influencer.
For the week ending May 6, in-store sales of Bud Light in the United States were down 23.6% from a year earlier. And the previous week, ending April 29, sales fell 23.3%.
This follows the drop in sales for the week ending April 22, which was 21.4%. And seven days earlier the drop was 17%, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.
Dylan Mulvaney, 26, released his first collaboration with Bud Light on April 1.
Bump Williams, an alcohol industry analyst, said Bud Light sales could continue to decline by up to 20% per week after the Dylan Mulvaney debacle.
The controversial trans influencer received a box with her face on it to celebrate one year since going from male to female.
The data – showing US sales falling as low as 20% every week – has been described by industry experts simply as “poor”.
Bump Williams of Bump Williams Consultancy told DailyMail.com: “I don’t think the sales/volume decline will get any worse, but I do think their negative volume trends will continue.”
He said the 20% drop in sales seems like the new “normal” for Bud Light.
But he said experts are waiting to see what happens to sales over Memorial Day and the summer selling season to assess whether the damage will indeed continue.
Williams, who specializes in the alcohol industry, told the St Louis Business Journal: “This seems to be where the brand’s weekly declines have started to set in, falling into that range of -20% at the course of the last week.”
“I wonder if this will be the ‘bottom’ for Bud Light’s expected declines in the future unless something drastically changes.”
Meanwhile, at a CVS in West Palm Beach, Florida that was trying to move some of Bud Light’s stock, the shelves were completely filled with beer multipacks.
Onlookers joked that no one wanted to buy the booze after the scandal.
Mulvaney announced his partnership with Bud Light on April 1 and the backlash was immediate
Bump Williams of Bump Williams Consultancy told DailyMail.com: ‘I don’t think the sales/volume decline will get any worse, but I think their negative volume trends will continue’
Another person said that after browsing through various stores and gas stations in Mississippi, she saw an overflow of Bud products because “no one is buying it.”
Williams previously said Bud Light should apologize and added, “Right now their compass is completely broken. There is no game plan.
Williams said that without a clear plan to handle the backlash and reverse declining sales, “Bud Light is in serious trouble this year.” He said the brand was still the top-selling brand in America, but risked being overtaken by Modelo Especial by the end of the year if the backlash continues.
His assessment comes after another PR expert told DailyMail.com that Bud Light needs to get the issue right or “they’ll only hurt themselves more”.
Bud’s current responses have been far-fetched explanations of the Mulvaney partnership with no concrete apologies to angry customers.
The outrage deepened when comments surfaced from Bud Light executive Alissa Heinerscheid, who said the beer needed to update its “fratty” and “out of touch” brand image.
Heinerscheid and his boss, Daniel Blake, Anheuser-Busch’s vice president for consumer brands, were furloughed following the scandal.
It comes as figures last week revealed Bud Light’s sales plummeted across all regions of the US following its disastrous partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.
America’s flagship beer brand has suffered a steep decline after using the controversial trans influencer, 26, to promote the drink.
Data from Beer Daily Business showed that sales of the number one brand in the United States fell in all regions of the country.
Sales in the Rocky Mountain states fell most significantly, down 29%, with South Atlantic, Central-Northwest and Central-Southeast all down 25%.
The Tumbleweed, a Wyoming cowboy bar, ditched Bud Light after the controversy — instead, it opted for Guinness.
Sales in the Northeast Central region — which includes Michigan and Illinois, which both saw a backlash against beer — fell 23.5% in the week ending April 22.
It comes as HSBC analysts downgraded Anheuser-Busch stock because it is in the midst of a “crisis” over the marketing error.
