The beer industry is in complete disbelief after seeing the continued backlash from the Bud Light controversy in which the beer company decided to do an infamous promo with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. According to the publisher of the prominent trade publication Beer Business Daily, this backlash has put rival beers in high demand so that supply shortages will occur.
The publisher, Harry Schuhmacher, told Fox News Digital about how the controversy rattles the beer industry.
The whole industry is in shock. Even Bud’s competitors aren’t really dancing on the grave because they know it could have happened to them. This particular promotion just really struck a chord. It was just a bridge too far, apparently, for consumers… we’re in week six and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better, In fact, the numbers just keep getting a little worse every week… down in the 25% area. And their competitors are up almost just as much, and that’s continuing through today.
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Schuhmacher continued in the interview, explaining how this backlash and continued refusal to buy Bud Light is impacting the beer industry:
You can’t just flip a switch and make beer. You know, beer is brewed. It takes, you know, at least a couple of weeks to make. So, they haven’t had major supply issues yet, but we’re about to hit Memorial Day and we could probably see some supply shortages there.
The publisher refers to Molson Coors, the competitor of Bud Light and the parent company of both Coors Light and Miller Lite.
Schuhmacher also explained that Anheuser-Busch has begun buying back unsold, expired beer from distributors, which brings much relief as they are the people that generally deal with the costs of an unpurchased product. The only problem with this is that distributors who rely on Americans purchasing Bud Light will continue to suffer.
Keep in mind, this is the beginning of the beer-selling season. We sell beer in the third quarter, and we’re about to hit Memorial Day, with these trends, it’s starting to be material for [Anheuser-Busch]’s bottom line, at least in the United States and North America.
Schuhmacher then explains how Anheuser-Busch’s parent company, InBev, is trying to get this controversy to blow over, with the company keeping a low profile while simultaneously increasing the marketing budget and offering heavy discounts at retail.
Their experience tells them that you don’t want to add to the conversation and add to the noise, because then it just repeats the news cycle, Boycotts like this usually do blow over… fairly quickly, within a couple of weeks or so. So, this is really unusual to go into two months.
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The extended attention to the controversy could be attributed to an increase in beer publications after Schuhmacher’s magazine, ‘Beer Business Daily,’ saw an explosion of interest.
We haven’t really seen it since 2008 when Miller bought Coors, or they merged and InBev bought Anheuser-Busch. So, yeah, there’s tremendous interest in this and our traffic on our website is blowing up,
It’s a story that just won’t die.
This situation is similar to the Target controversy, with the retailer still reeling. The store faced backlash over selling ‘tuck-friendly’ bathing suits and chest binders for ‘transgender’ children, making the company decide to remove certain LGBTQ items from its stores before June.
When Schuhmacher was asked in the interview with Fox News Digital why the beer company was receiving more flak from society than Target has, he answered:
In the public psyche, Bud Light has always been considered so much of a deep Americana, middle America, working man and woman’s beer. And when you just flip that completely on its end, it’s hard for the consumer to swallow, I think the difference, you know, Target is more geared towards women, high-end middle American women, but Bud Light is not that far in the middle of the spectrum, at least in the consumer’s mind of where it’s supposed to be.
Other stories you may want to read:
‘Enemy of the People’: Americans See Media as Untrustworthy With a Left-Wing Bias
Target CEO Accused of ‘Selling Out LGBTQ+ Community’ by Gavin Newsom
