Anheuser-Busch has now seen a staggering $27 billion dollars wiped from its market value after efforts to turn its beer brand Bud Light “woke” backfired.
The beermaker has been hit with devastating boycotts after Bud Light partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for an ad campaign.
Since the Mulvaney campaign launched on April 1, Anheuser-Busch had lost about $27 billion by the end of May.
According to Dow Jones Market Data Group, the company had a $134.55 billion value as of March 31 before it plunged to $107.44 billion by the end of May.
The company’s stock plummeted 19.98% from its high in March.
That 20% drop enters the zone of a bear market.
Bump Williams Consulting estimates that Bud Light sales revenues have dropped 25.7% for the week ending May 20, compared to the same week in 2022.
On April 1, Mulvaney, a man who “identifies” as a “woman,” posted a video to his 1.8 million followers on Instagram.
In a video promoting his partnership with Bud Light, Mulvaney drank cans of beer with an image of his face on the side.
“This month I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood, and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever, a can with my face on it,” Mulvaney said.
The “woke” campaign triggered an immediate and sustained backlash.
GO WOKE GO BROKE pic.twitter.com/MwTlrqLQ59
— Bri Teresi (@briteresi) April 25, 2023
By May 24, a report had estimated Anheuser-Busch InBev’s market value plunging $15.7.
That estimate came from Investor’s Business Daily, which used a conversion to U.S. dollars using data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
“We believe there is a subset of American consumers who will not drink a Bud Light for the foreseeable future,” Jared Dinges, beverage analyst at JPMorgan Chase, said on May 23.
“We believe a 12% to 13% volume decline on an annualized basis would be a reasonable assumption.”
“Shares [of Anheuser-Busch] have underperformed EU Beer peers by 15% since the start of April,” Dinges continued.
“We believe this is due to U.S. uncertainty, as investor focus has shifted squarely to the potential impact from the Bud Light controversy. …
“We do not expect the lost sales to be recovered in fiscal year 2024.”
Anheuser-Busch’s former president of sales and distribution, Anson Frericks, recently warned that trouble lay ahead for the company.
Frericks said he foresaw “a long, hot, dry summer for Anheuser-Busch.”
“I think that you’re going to see sales continue to be down because customers, it’s too easy for them to switch to other brands, and they’re seeing the impact of their results,” Frericks explained.
“If they want those customers back, they have an easy decision that they can make, which is saying, ‘We want Bud Light customers back, therefore Bud Light is not going to get involved with political issues moving forward.’
“If not, they’re probably going to be in a worse position next year and their sales will continue to decline.”
READ MORE: Dylan Mulvaney Says He Can’t Sleep after Destroying Bud Light
