Bud Light sales down 20% in a week could be ‘the new norm’

Bud Light sales dropping as much as 20 percent on a weekly basis could become the “new norm” after Dylan Mulvaney’s disastrous debacle for the company.

Industry analysts have warned that unless something drastic changes, negative volume trends will continue into the summer months, as a result of the beer brand’s partnership with the transgender influencer.

In the week ending May 6, Bud Light sales in stores across the United States were down 23.6 percent compared to a year earlier. And in the week before that, ending April 29, sales fell 23.3%.

This follows lower sales for the week ending April 22, which were 21.4 percent. And seven days ago, the drop was 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.

Dylan Mulvaney, 26, posted her first collaboration with Bud Light on April 1.

The controversial influencer was sent a box of Bud Light with her face on it to celebrate the one year anniversary of her transition from male to female.

The data – which shows US sales are falling as much as 20 per cent each week – has since been described as “bad” by industry experts.

“I don’t think the downturn in sales/volume is going to get worse, but I do think the negative volume trends will continue,” Bump Williams of Bump Williams Consultancy told DailyMail.com.

He said a 20 percent drop in sales appears to be the new “norm” for Bud Light.

But he added that experts are waiting to see what happens to sales during Memorial Day and the summer sales season to assess whether the damage will last.

“This appears to be where the brand’s weekly declines are starting to level off, dropping in the -20% range over the past few weeks,” Williams, the alcohol industry specialist, told the St. Louis Business Journal.

“I wonder if this will be the expected ‘floor’ for Bud Light decline moving forward unless something drastic changes.

Anheuser-Busch has been contacted for comment.

Meanwhile, at CVS in West Palm Beach, Florida, in an effort to shake up some of the shelves of its Bud Light stock, it was stocked with multiple packages of beer.

Onlookers joked that no one wanted to buy alcohol after the scandal.

Another person said that after driving around various stores and gas stations in Mississippi, they saw a flood of Bud products because “no one buys them.”

Williams previously said Bud Light should apologize and added, ‘At the moment, the compass is completely broken. There is no game plan.

Without a clear plan to weather the backlash and turn around the decline in sales, Williams said, “Bud Lite is in serious trouble this year.” The brand remains America’s best-selling brand, he said, but risks being overtaken by the Modelo Especial by the end of the year if the backlash continues.

His assessment comes after another PR expert told DailyMail.com that Bud Light must address the issue properly or “they’ll only hurt themselves.”

Budd’s current responses have been elaborate explanations of Mulvaney’s partnership without offering concrete apologies to angry clients.

The anger deepened when comments surfaced from Bud Light CEO Alisa Heinscheid, who said the beer needed to update its “rotten” and “out of touch” brand.

Heinerscheid and its boss, Daniel Blake, Anheuser-Busch vice president of major brands, have been placed on leave over the scandal.

This comes as figures revealed last week that Bud Light sales have plummeted in every US region in the wake of its disastrous partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.

The American beer brand has taken a steep dive after it used the controversial influencer, 26, to promote the beverage.

Data from Beer Business Daily showed that sales of the number one brand in the United States fell in every region of the country.

Sales in the Rocky Mountain states were down significantly, down 29 percent, with South Atlantic, West North Central and East South Central all down 25 percent.

The Tumbleweed Tavern, a Wyoming cowboy bar, abandoned the Bud Light after the controversy — and instead gave up Guinness.

Sales in the East North Central region — which includes Michigan and Illinois, both of which have seen a backlash against beer — fell 23.5 percent in the week ending April 22.

It comes as analysts at HSBC downgraded Anheuser-Busch stock because it is in the midst of a “crisis” over a marketing blunder.