Bud Light has been on a mission to regain lost customers amid the continual backlash against the beermaker for partnering with the transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in early April. Most recently, the beer’s official Twitter account posted a couple of tweets themed around the 4th of July holiday. However, like Bud Light’s other desperate attempts to regain market share, the company was slammed by social media users.
One of the tweets read, “It’s 4th of July weekend, enjoy some beer.” Following this post, the official Bud Light account uploaded a GIF of Tuesday showing a man drinking a Bud Light by a fan with the caption, Never underestimate the power of a makeshift mister. Happy 4th everyone.”
It’s 4th of July weekend, enjoy some beer 🍻 pic.twitter.com/bylW1HIcwX
— Bud Light (@budlight) June 30, 2023
Never underestimate the power of a makeshift mister. Happy 4th everyone 🍺 pic.twitter.com/fIl6w0GYIH
— Bud Light (@budlight) July 4, 2023
Unsurprisingly, Bud Light was utterly “ratio’ed” (an internet term meaning someone was overwhelmingly roasted in the comments section), where the company was met with harsh criticism from other Twitter users. However, this is nothing new for Bud Light, where this pattern has been observed in every single recent post made on the company’s social media profiles.
One user said, “I bet you’re relieved that Bud Light managed to shed it’s “fratty” image by telling us all to take a hike. Nobody’s buying your beer but at least you’ll never be associated with us again. How is your new, more “diverse” customer base treating you guys, anyway?”
“Your CEO’s bull crap interview on CBS sealed it. You’d rather bow at the altar on DEI and ESG insanity than be respectful of the people who used to like your brand. Your company is done,” another user weighed in.
Another person unapologetically slammed the beer, stating, “‘Hey, we f–ked you over, we haven’t apologized, but we dropped a bunch of money on a new ad so we can sucker you back in to be able to f–k you again in the future.’How’d I do?”
Even when taking a cursory glance at the comments section of literally any Bud Light social media post, the disdain toward the beer is still palpable even as we enter the fourth month since the controversy unfolded in early April.
On a weekly basis, Bud Light is still seeing massive declines in its sales figures. Since April, weekly declines have consistently been north of 20 percent. Although, as the weeks carried on, the declining sales actually got progressively worse, suggesting the boycott was gaining steam over time instead of dying out.
Parent company Anheuser-Busch has lost billions in market value for its shareholders. At the same time, Bud Light and other AB InBev products have a severely tarnished brand image that some predict will never recover. Furthermore, Bud Light was recently dethroned from its long-held, coveted title of the best-selling beer in America. Now it has been displaced by Modelo Especial.
In the early days of the unfolding boycott, Anheuser-Busch indicated it would triple its marketing spend throughout the summer season in an attempt to recover from the boycott. Summer is known for being the time of peak demand for beer, so this is a crucial moment for Bud Light to reposition itself in the beer market. However, it looks like beer drinkers have no intention of returning to the woke beer.
"*" indicates required fields