Bud Light’s parent company Anheuser-Busch has lost $3 billion in market cap value following its endorsement of a transgender social media influencer.
The beer conglomerate was worth $132 billion on March 31st. On April 1, the company announced it was partnering with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Reaction was swift. Musician Kid Rock posted a video showing him shooting cases of the beer. Then country music stars Travis Tritt and John Rich ripped the beer company.
On Tuesday, Anheuser-Busch’s share price dipped to $64.96, which wiped out $3 billion from the company’s value, the Daily Mail reported.
Despite the heavy hit, Anheuser-Busch stands by its partnership with Mulvaney.
“Anheuser-Busch works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics and passion points,” vice president of marketing Alissa Gordon Heinerscheid said.
“From time to time, we produce unique commemorative cans for fans and for brand influencers, like Dylan Mulvaney. This commemorative can was a gift to celebrate a personal milestone and is not for sale to the general public,” she said.
Anheuser-Busch distributors in the South, meanwhile, were “spooked” by the backlash and have been placing fewer orders.
“We reached out to a handful of A-B [Anheuser-Busch] distributors who were spooked, most particularly in the Heartland and the South, and even then in their more rural areas,” according to a Beer Business Daily report reviewed by Fox News.
Since the announcement, Consumers across the U.S. revolted against Bud Light, according to bar owners and beer-industry experts around the country.
“I think society flexes its muscles sometimes and reminds manufacturers that the consumer is still in charge,” Jeff Fitter, owner of Case & Bucks, a restaurant and sports bar in Barnhart, Missouri, told Fox Business. “In Bud Light’s effort to be inclusive, they excluded almost everybody else, including their traditional audience.”
Fitter said sales of Anheuser-Busch bottled products dropped 30% over the past week, while draft beer plunged 50%.
It wasn’t just Case & Bucks that saw sales of Bud plummet. Brewhouse owner Alex Kesaris told Fox that 80% of Bud Light drinkers ordered something else this week, “while the 20% who did order the beer ‘weren’t on social media and hadn’t heard yet.’”
A national beer-industry analyst told Fox Business that Bud Light’s move was a “bad decision” that defied “virtually every rule in building brands and marketing.”
The analyst cited a scenario in Texas, where Bud Light has long sponsored a weekly dart league that draws more than 100 players every Thursday. The bar usually blows through three kegs of Bud Light at the event — nearly 500 12-ounce glasses.
This week, the bar sold only four bottles of Bud Light.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.