(USNewsMag.com) – After the fifth week of declining sales, a former Anheuser-Busch CEO is issuing a warning that the boycott would continue.
Anson Frericks, a former executive for Anheuser-Busch, said that seeing sales decline means consumers feel that the boycott is having an impact. Frericks said until Bud Light issues a statement to its customers, he sees the boycott continuing as politics had never been part of the brand’s messaging. Frericks said the brand was “remarkably unpolitical,” which helped the brand, and this was a situation” they should not have got themselves” into.
Frericks said he doesn’t see the issue going away until Bud Light makes it clear who its customers are and admits they made a mistake.
Sales of Bud Light, as well as other Anheuser-Busch products have declined since April 1 when transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney shared partnership posts with her and Bud Light with the 11 million followers of her social media accounts. In-store sales across the country fell 23.6 percent for just the week ending May 6 compared to 2022.
After the backlash, both Bud Light’s vice president of marketing Alissa Heinerscheid and Daniel Blake, the head of marketing for Anheuser-Busch’s mainstream brands, took a leave of absence.
Anheuser-Busch Michel Doukeris has said the ad was ‘not a campaign,’ that it was approved by an outside agency without the approval of Bud Light. Anheuser-Busch has said the can was not intended to be sold and that the marketing firm was fired.
While the original boycott was driven by conservatives, Bud Light was then criticized by LGBTQ+ activists for not defending the influencer.
The company, seeking to move on from the controversy, is set to launch a new campaign to help promote the “Folds of Honor” program, which will feature camouflage aluminum bottles. The program provides families of fallen soldiers, disabled American military service members as well as first responders’ educational scholarships.
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