Image Credit: Twitter screenshot 
An experiment conducted by Outkick founder Clay Travis purports to show how people don’t want to be seen sporting the beer brand Bud Light after the company’s ill-fated partnership with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Travis conducted the “experiment” over the weekend at a concert in Franklin, Tennessee, by leaving a cooler full of free beer out with an offer to “pick which beer you want.”
The ice chest contained beers from Bud Light, Yeungling, and Michelob Ultra and was left out for about four hours before he came back to review the results.
“I’m not a marketing expert, but the only beer left at the WestFest VIP event — Bud Light,” Travis said, adding, “Not ideal, not good.”
“No one would take the Bud Light all night long,” Travis explained. “Big issue going forward for Bud Light is many don’t even want to be seen with product. They just pick another brand.”
Travis concluded people’s refusal to consume the beer in public spells even more disaster for the embattled brand.
Overall consumption of Bud Light is now down 26%. That’s an unmitigated disaster for the brand. And many are now avoiding the beer to avoid being mocked for drinking the beer. There’s no quick fix here, brand is slaughtered in red state beer drinking communities. Bet there is…
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 8, 2023
“Overall consumption of Bud Light is now down 26%. That’s an unmitigated disaster for the brand,” Travis noted on Twitter. “And many are now avoiding the beer to avoid being mocked for drinking the beer. There’s no quick fix here, brand is slaughtered in red state beer drinking communities. Bet there is hardly any at SEC tailgates this fall.”
As Bud Light hemorrhages support, AB InBev CEO Michel Doukeris has blamed “misinformation and confusion” on social media for the woke backlash and nationwide boycott.
“People often talk about this topic in social media like noise… You have one fact and every person puts an opinion behind the fact,” Doukeris told the Financial Times Tuesday. “And then the opinions start to be replicated fast on each and every comment. By the time that 10 or 20 people put a comment out there, the reality is no longer what the fact is, but is more [about] what the comments were.”
Meanwhile, retailers like Costco are having a hard time moving the beer off its shelves despite selling clearance 36-packs of Bud Light for $14.97 — a cost of 41 cents per beer!
Time will tell if Bud Light can recover from its egregious decision to alienate its core customer base.