LGBTQ beer ads are old hat — despite new troubles for Bud Light

After more than 20 years at the top of the beer charts, Bud Light retail sales in the United States have taken a dive at the same time the brand is facing criticism over featuring a social media star who is transgender in an advertisement.

"This is sort of uncharted waters for a brand like that when it comes to seven weeks of sharp declines of that magnitude,' said Dave Williams, vice-president of analytics for Bump Williams Consulting, which focuses on the alcoholic beverage industry. 

The brand has faced negative reaction in the United States since an early April video where transgender TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney promoted the brand and held up personalized commemorative cans featuring her face. Some politicians and celebrities in the United States reacted angrily to beer brand featuring a transgender spokesperson.

While it's impossible to directly connect Bud Light's drop in sales to a single Instagram video highlighting a trans spokesperson, Williams said that since April, sales have been declining for Bud Light while other brands have gained traction. The data are not publicly available.

Williams's firm analyzed data from Nielsen IQ and found dollar sales of Bud Light at U.S. retail outlets had dropped by more than 24 per cent in the week ending June 3, compared to the year before. Mexican lager Modelo Especial took over the top spot from Bud Light.

"I certainly see a correlation between, you know, some of the backlash that we saw online ... with the recent accelerated declines in sales," said Williams.

Williams and other industry watchers are characterizing the fall in sales as likely tied to a conservative backlash — and ensuing fallout — over the inclusion of LGBTQ groups in an advertisement, even though beer companies have leveraged gay, lesbian, bisexual and gender-diverse communities in marketing for years. 

The backlash — and the resulting drop in sales — may have caught Bud Light and its parent company AB InBev off guard, according to a Toronto-based marketer.

"Bud Light has always supported and actually comes after queer consumers," explained Scott Knox, founder of industry group Pride in Advertising and Marketing, who said that after the backlash to a trans spokesperson erupted online, Bud Light's response was "lukewarm" and didn't appear decisive, for either heterosexual or LGBTQ audiences.

"What that signaled was they weren't prepared and they weren't ready to deal with any potential backlash because it was a trans performer, " said Knox.

The company's response has not directly addressed or apologized for the video. But one of the executives responsible has taken a leave of absence, and the company issued a press release where it said "we never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people." 

LGBTQ advocates at the U.S. based Human Rights Campaign called the company's responses "shameful."

To marketers such as Knox, Bud Light should have taken a more firm stance after the backlash started.

While a portion of its customer base was demonstrating anger in online videos, some of which featured celebrities shooting Bud Light with firearms, another portion of the customer base may have been upset at Bud Light taking a muted stance.