The boycott of Bud Light following an ad campaign featuring transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney appears to be having an impact, industry analysts say.
“This boycott seems to have more legs than most,” Justin Kendall, editor of beer industry trade publication Brewbound, told the New York Post on Tuesday. “It started out as a conversation on social media and has breached into mainstream media.”
The transgender activist, who was born male, revealed earlier this month that Bud Light featured him on its can. A video featured Mulvaney in a bathtub drinking a Bud Light beer as part of the ad campaign, drawing significant backlash.
Mulvaney had posted a number of videos and photos on social media promoting his sponsorship deal with Bud Light. The company produced cans with Mulvaney’s likeness to commemorate the partnership, although Anheuser-Busch later said that those cans are not for sale to the general public.
Country music singer John Rich said that he pulled cases of the popular beer from his bar as part of a boycott against Bud Light’s parent, Anheuser-Busch, which also produces Budweiser. Rock star Kid Rock also posted a video of himself shooting up cases of the beer.
“The customers decide. Customers are king,” Rich told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “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, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone ordering one. So as a business owner, I go, hey if you aren’t ordering it, we got to put something else in here. At the end of the day, that’s capitalism. That’s how it works.”
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Beer Business Daily editor and publisher Harry Schuhmacher gave a more dire assessment. He said that distributors in some rural areas are “spooked” by the backlash, noting that some of the distributors rely on Bud Light sales to keep afloat.
