Not even Garth Brooks can seem to help Bud Light at this point, but that didn’t stop the country music icon from trying.
Despite the celebrity bar owner openly endorsing the lager and its message of inclusiveness at his Nashville honky-tonk last week, it is no longer America’s favorite beer, following a boycott that has decimated sales.
Voting with their wallets, conservatives continued to give the Anheuser-Busch brand a wide berth in May after it paid a transgender influencer to promote the brand on social media. In the process, the crown ironically passed to a rival from south of the border.
In the four weeks that ended on June 3, Mexico’s Modelo Especial captured 8.4% of U.S. retail-store beer sales, eclipsing the 7.3% share of Bud Light, according to an analysis of Nielsen data by consulting firm Bump Williams cited by the Wall Street Journal.
The collapse in demand, while considerable, was not a surprise given recent trends.
Amid the controversy over the Dylan Mulvaney Instagram post that sparked the backlash, Brooks said his “Friends in Low Places” establishment located in the heart of Nashville would not partake in the boycott.
“I want it to be a place you feel like there are manners and people love one another—I think that’s a cool place. And yes, we’re going to serve every brand of beer,” he told Billboard Country Live Q&A last week. “Our thing is this: If you come into this house, love one another. If you’re an a******, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway to go.”
After his remarks angered a number of fans, Brooks on Monday responded unapologetically to threats they would burn his records. Rather than playing his comments down, like Bud Light’s parent company appeared to do, he leaned into them.
Garth has been an advocate for civil rights for decades. Don’t let him being a giant of country music fool you. Remember “We Can Be Free”…he wrote that civil rights anthem after the LA riots…Brooks was cut out of the Super Bowl in ’93 because https://t.co/DVe8cjEFH2
— Ameshia Cross (@AmeshiaCross) June 10, 2023
“Inclusiveness is always going to be me, I think diversity is the answer to the problems that are here and the answer to the problems that are coming, so I love diversity,” he said in a message posted on Facebook.
Responding to a request from Fortune, a spokesperson for Anheuser-Busch said: “For the year, Bud Light remains the No. 1 brand in the U.S. nationally in volume and dollar sales.”
Poll shows transgender support is on the wane
Bud Light’s promotion with Mulvaney unwittingly made it the focal point of the hyper-politicized transgender debate in America.
Even though voters do not consider LGBTQ+ rights to be a key priority when compared with immigration or women’s reproductive rights, it has become a wedge issue driving a fault line clean through society. The beginning of Pride Month on June 1 has only brought that further to the fore.
According to a Gallup poll published on Monday, tolerance for transgender people, such as social media influencer Mulvaney, has declined over the past two years.
Whereas 46% of all Americans believed it was morally acceptable to change one’s gender two years ago, that figure has now declined to 43% reflecting a loss in support among middle-of-the-road independents. A clear 55% majority of Americans surveyed now consider it to be wrong, although most identifying as Democrats would disagree.
This updates a previous version of the story with a comment from Anheuser-Busch.