After reaching a three-year high of $66.73 per share, Bud Light parent company Anheuser Busch InbevĀ lost more than $6 billion in market capĀ since announcing its partnership with 26-year-old transgender ‘influencer’ Dylan MulvaneyĀ on April 2,Ā as bar owners and distributors report aĀ sharp declineĀ in Bud Light salesĀ over the past week.
The company’s market cap fell as low as $125.7 billion, down from $132.8 billion six days ago, a drop of more than five-percent.
Meanwhile competitor Molson Coors (TAP) saw $350 million added to its market cap over the last week.
Bud Light’s partnership with Mulvaney includedĀ custom cans featuring his face and pro-LGBTQ languageĀ to commemorate the biological male’s ‘being a woman’ for over a year. The ad campaign kicked off with naked Mulvaney drinking Bud Light in a bathtub.
And while Anheuser-Busch issued a statement in support of Mulvaney, saying it “works with hundreds of influencers across our brands as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics,” theĀ Daily WireĀ reports thatĀ company executives had no idea about the ad campaign.
āNo one at the senior levelā of the company was awareĀ of Bud Lightās polarizing partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, sources close to the situation claim.Ā The company is also allegedly pausing its marketing effortsĀ and scrambling to implement a more ārobustā process for evaluating future influencer partnerships.
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āNo one at a senior level was aware this was happening,āĀ said one source, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. āSome low-level marketing staffer who helps manage the hundreds of influencer engagements they do must have thought it was no big deal. Obviously it was, and itās a shame because they have a well-earned reputation for just being Americaās beer ā not a political company. It was a mistake.ā
A second source also claimed that a lower level employee had made the decision to include Mulvaney in the campaign, a move that appears to have cost the company $5 billion in market value. The backlash to the iconic American beer brand has been so intense that a Budweiser distributor in Missouri canceled an event with the companyās famous Clydesdale horses because everything was āstill sensitiveā over the matter. -Daily Wire
This comes after the company’s woke vice president of marketingĀ touted her mandate that that brand be more “inclusive.”
Wow…
As we noted on Wednesday,Ā bar owners and distributors have reported a sharp decline in Bud Light sales since the campaign launched.
According to John Ruch, country music singer and owner of the Redneck Riviera bar in Nashville, TN,Ā Bud LightĀ used to beĀ their most popular beer.
“The customers decide. Customers are king,” he toldĀ Fox NewsĀ host Tucker Carlson on Monday. “I own a bar in downtown Nashville called Redneck Riviera. Our number-one selling beer up until a few days ago was what? Bud Light. We got cases and cases and cases of it sitting back there. But in the past several days, youāre hard-pressed to find anyone ordering one. So as a business owner, I go, hey if you arenāt ordering it, we got to put something else in here. At the end of the day, thatās capitalism. Thatās how it works.”
According to Rich,Ā fans are finding it “hard to stay loyal”Ā to now-woke brands, and are instead voting with their wallets.
“And there are tons of up-and-coming American brands that people are flooding to right now,” he said.
In one video, a beer merchandiser said of the situation; “I’ve never seen such little sales as in the past few days…Ā I can’t feed my family.”
Meanwhile, Woke, Inc. loves Mulvaney – who’s scored ads with Nike, Oil of Olay and other companies.
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