Following Bud Light’s widely-criticized decision to partner with a “transgender” activist for an advertising campaign, the beer brand’s parent company has already lost over $6 billion in market value.
As reported by Breitbart, Anheuser-Busch shares have dropped by almost 5 percent as consumers have ditched Bud Light in droves out of protest of the brand’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a man who believes he is a woman. Since Bud Light first announced the partnership earlier this month, the company has already lost at least $6.65 billion.
The deal with Mulvaney includes his appearance in numerous Bud Light commercials, as well as a limited edition release of Bud Light cans featuring his face. Upon announcing the deal, Mulvaney – who celebrated his “day 365 of womanhood” – revealed that the company had sent him “possibly the best gift ever — a can with my face on it.”
Much of the drop in Anheuser-Busch’s market value has come from bars and other small establishments across the country failing to sell any Bud Light as customers avoid the beer out of silent protest. Some bars, including one in Missouri, have seen Bud Light sales drop by 40 percent. One bar in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City saw sales fall by as much as 70 percent.
The backlash is especially prominent in the American South and the heartland, among other regions, where mostly rural and conservative voters are voicing their clear opposition to the brand’s endorsement of “transgenderism,” an ideology built around a mental illness where someone believes that there are more than two genders, and that a person can suddenly change their gender at any given time.
In attempting to justify the disastrous marketing decision, Bud Light’s vice president of marketing Alissa Heinerscheid tried to claim that, in her view, “Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out-of-touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.”