Effect on sales In the week ending April 8, 2023, Bud Light had reportedly experienced an 11% drop in sales, and a 21% drop in the week ending April 15, 2023. Doukeris also said that the drop in sales "would represent around 1 percent of our overall global volumes for that period". Additionally, the boycott had begun to affect the sales of Anheuser-Busch's other brands with an 11.4% sales hit to their flagship
Budweiser brand, and a 4.4% drop of
Grupo Modelo sales. This is on top of the roughly 21.4% drop in sales of Bud Light.
Constellation Brands owns the exclusive licensing and distribution rights for Grupo Modelo brands in the United States. In mid-May,
Republican Senators
Ted Cruz and
Marsha Blackburn opened a Senate investigation into Anheuser-Busch's partnership with Mulvaney, citing as particular points of cause Mulvaney's use of the word "girlhood" in the title of her TikTok series, her references to herself as a girl, and concerns over whether the partnership was intended to market alcoholic beverages to children. In late August 2023, Anheuser-Busch would face criticism from Cruz for stonewalling the investigation while
Armstrong Williams assessed that using a TikTok influencer showed a clear intent to market to underage children. Responding to Anheuser-Busch's alleged failure to support Mulvaney during the boycott, the
Human Rights Campaign Foundation rescinded the company's top rating for LGBTQ+ equality in May 2023. By the end of May, the terms "Bud Lighted" and "Bud Lighting" began to circulate on the internet to describe a boycott whose "strategy is to crush so-called
rainbow capitalism by branding companies as "
woke" and calling for boycotts over everything from
Adidas' gender-inclusive swimwear to a
The North Face marketing campaign featuring drag queen and environmentalist
Pattie Gonia." Also at the end of that month, AB InBev stock shares fell by 20% from where it was before the boycott and had begun to be considered a
bear stock by
Forbes. In total, $26 billion had been removed from their market valuation, as rival
Molson Coors' stock valuation rose 19%. Meanwhile, HSBC cut AB InBev stock to a hold. HSBC analyst Carlos Laboy explained the decision's thought process "It is unclear how ABI will reverse eroding US volume and brand relevance, and fix distributors' trust, without leadership changes." Late May also saw AB InBev double down on their pro-LGBTQ+ outlook, donating $200,000 to the
National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. The company also attempted to patch their sales figures by offering $15 rebates with the purchase of a 15-pack and slashing prices to $3.49 for a 24-pack.
MarketWatch reported that May was the single worst month in AB InBev's history, correlating to the single largest selloff of AB InBev stock due to a 17% overall drop in sales, with Bud Light dropping in sales by 28%, Budweiser by 16%,
Busch by 12%, and
Michelob Ultra by 10%. MarketWatch also noted that AB InBev's rival, Molson Coors, had seen their products sale dramatically increase. Noting a 16% increase in
Coors Light, 15% increase in
Miller Lite, and
Yuengling, an independent brewery in collaboration with Molson Coors, had sales jump 32%. CNN called the boycott "a self induced injury that torpedoed sales". On June 3, Brayden King, a professor of management and organizations, gave an interview to
CNBC calling the Bud Light boycott an outlier in the right's attack on "woke capitalism" because it is the first one to actually harm the company's sales. King studied 133 political boycotts from 1990 to 2005 and none of them accounted for more than a 1% drop in sales for a company; the Bud Light boycott had resulted in an estimated 18% drop in all AB InBev sales. CNBC also predicted that the boycott would only strengthen as June
Pride Month began, and to expect Molson Coors stock to continue to climb. Former president of sales and distribution at Anheuser-Busch, Anson Frericks, noted that should the boycott remain strong for another month, retailers would have no choice but to begin reallocating their limited shelf space by relying on sales data from the preceding months. Struggling sales and stock price, as well as a nearly $1 billion investment in
Heineken N.V. by
Bill Gates prior to the controversy, began to threaten AB InBev's position as the number 1 beer producer and distributor in the United States. Most of the industry had been anticipating
Modelo Especial to overtake Bud Light in sales for some time, but the boycott accelerated the switch. Sales would continue to decline during the
July 4th weekend, with Bud Light dropping to the 14th place in popularity, falling behind
Pabst Blue Ribbon and
Miller Lite. During the weekend Anheuser-Busch offered a $15 rebate on Bud-Light, effectively making it free. However, this was not enough to end the boycott as sales slid 23.6% over the weekend compared to 2022, as rivals such as Coors continued to climb in market share. Anheuser-Busch's stocks would begin to stabilize in early August 2023 ending a nearly 5-month-long slide in their stock valuation. Additionally, a survey by
Deutsche Bank in early August found that only 3% of Bud Light drinkers plan on boycotting the beer. However, people already boycotting the beer, which they assessed to be upwards of 30% of pre-boycott drinkers, were not surveyed. On September 13, AB InBev posted their first stock growth since the start of the boycott, at +0.04%, however, continued to struggle when compared to the growth of other beer brands. On September 6, Bill Gates purchased 1.7 million shares (0.1% stake) of AB InBev valued at $95 million stating that he is confident in the brewer's future to recover from the boycott. Anson Frericks stated that his purchasing of AB InBev stock was an attempt to recover from his unsuccessful investment into Heineken earlier in the year.
TheStreet reported that the boycott on AB InBev products has been successful mostly due to consumers buying beers made by Molson-Coors or other companies, which does not impact the overall experience of drinking, and thus makes the boycott easy to maintain.
Bank of America upgraded their stock ranking on September 29, 2023, arguing that the damage of the boycott is mostly passed. As a result, the AB InBev stock price saw its second best day in 2023, and their best day since the start of the boycott, up 3.3%. However, AB InBev saw its stock decline by 2.86% in the two weeks after. By October 16, the total decline in AB InBev's revenue from sales since the start of the boycott came in as 10.5%. At the same time
Yuengling reported that they have been consistently selling out their entire stock and seek to expand their distribution to the remaining 24 states where they aren't sold to fill the void of AB InBev and Bud-Light. On
October 31 2023, AB InBev opened up about the exact sales figures, reporting a 13.5% decline in U.S. revenue and a 17.5% decline in U.S. sales and a total decline in volume of 3.4%; however, they reported continued growth, namely in Central America and Africa.
Effect on AB InBev By July 2023, Bud Light's parent company
AB InBev's shares had fallen to $58 per share, despite being at $66 in March 2023. In July 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called for AB InBev to be investigated by Florida's pension fund agency, as Florida's pension fund held over 680,000 shares in AB InBev. For the April-to-June quarter, AB InBev reported that its United States revenue had dropped by 10.5% from the previous year, primarily due to a volume decline in Bud Light. However, its global brands like
Stella Artois and
Corona contributed to an overall global revenue increase of 7.2% for the same period. On July 27, 2023, AB InBev announced they would be laying off nearly 400 of their North American staff. The layoff, which consisted of about 2% of the company, comes following the decline in the company's stock prices and sales figures. CEO Brendan Whitworth clarified that the layoffs will mostly be located in the corporate front office and marketing team, and will not affect the brewers and distributors. On August 8, 2023, Anheuser-Busch sold off several brands to the
cannabis company
Tilray. These included
Shock Top,
Breckenridge Brewery,
Blue Point Brewing Company,
10 Barrel Brewing Company,
Redhook Ale Brewery,
Widmer Brothers Brewery,
Square Mile Cider Company, and
HiBall Energy. Anheuser-Busch cited a $400 million drop in revenue for the reason for the sale, which turned Tilray into the fifth largest craft beer producer in the United States. Following these property sales,
Billy Busch, heir to the fortune of
Adolphus Busch, offered to purchase the Bud Light brand from Anheuser-Busch. ==See also==