Anheuser-Busch heir Billy Busch says he’d like to “make Bud Light great again” by purchasing the business to “help get them out of this hole” following the beer giant’s advertising blowback with transgender personality Dylan Mulvaney, which has cost the company about $395 million in lost U.S. sales.
“They’re gonna have to do something drastic in order to change the tide that’s rolling with them right now,” Busch told Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” Wednesday.
“I think I could make Bud Light great again, to tell you the truth.”
Bud Light sales dropped 29.5% during the week ended July 29 since its tie-up with Mulvaney on April 1, according to data from NielsenIQ and Bump Williams Consulting. Revenue has taken a nearly $400 million hit since the backlash started.
“I think what AB InBev has done has turned off a big portion of the population with their advertising,” Busch told Newsmax.
“You know, let’s face it, the Dylan Mulvaney advertising was controversial, it was something people didn’t relate to, and it was definitely a political agenda that was shoved down people’s throats. And so, the people that drink beer, especially the Bud Light drinkers, didn’t relate to advertising like that and it just turned them off and because it’s so political today, you know, it’s just something that I don’t know if AB’s ever gonna recover from.”
He added: “I don’t think they’ve been in the heartland of this country where you have your farmers, your blue-collar workers who enjoy a Bud Light after work, and they don’t understand that these people, including me at my age, I don’t really understand the whole gender identity thing. The whole transgender thing. I don’t really understand it.
“I’m not against it, but do we want that on our beer cans? Not really. That’s not something that we can relate to, that most people that drink Bud Light can relate to, and these people that are running the company now, they bring in these very woke, liberal college kids and put them to work in the marketing department and they come up with advertising like this.”
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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