Bud Light’s steep sales drops are showing signs of bottoming out — but the struggling beer brand is still on track to losing its No. 1 status in the US following its disastrous marketing tie-up with Dylan Mulvaney.
Sales of Bud Light plunged 23.9% for the week ended May 27 — slightly better than the 25.7% drop a week earlier and marking the first time that the sales decline didn’t grow worse versus the previous week, according to data from Bump Williams Consulting and NielsonIQ.
Drops for Anheuser-Busch’s other brands — including Budweiser, Michelob Ultra, Busch Light, Natural Light — also saw narrower drops than a week earlier amid a wider backlash against Bud Light and its parent company.
“Perhaps the bottom has been hit and we are seeing a turn-around in performance,” Bump Williams, head of the eponymous consulting firm told The Post.
Anheuser-Busch’s $15 rebate on 18 packs and larger amounts of Bud Light surely boosted sales over Memorial Day weekend, experts said.
The brewer discounted the brand from May 17 through May 31, and shoppers were scooping up $20 cases of Bud Light for $5 or even less in some states, according to reports.
“Price probably has a lot to do with improved trends,” Williams said. “I expect to see a lot more price discounting on [Anheuser-Busch’s] portfolio this summer to try and persuade consumers to come back.”
Sales volume — or number of cases sold containing 12 cans or more — was down 27.8% compared with 29.5%, marking the first time the declines didn’t grow steeper in the seven weeks that this data has been tracked,
Nevertheless, the 20%-plus declines are endangering Bud Light’s its perch as the No.1 beer in the US as Modelo has been outselling it for weeks now.
During the week ended May 27 Modelo Especial’s sales grew by 9.5% compared to a year ago and its sales volume was up by 4.7%.
The beer brand’s market share is 8.2% compared with Bud Light’s 7.2% for the week.
Year to date data shows that Bud Light remains the No.1 beer at 9.1% market share compared with Modelo’s 8.0 market share, according to Bump Williams Consulting and NielsonIQ.
Bud Light had better reverse the declines soon it hopes to retain shelf space at retailers, a former Anheuser-Busch executive warned.
Anson Frericks, who headed Anheuser-Busch’s sales and distribution department, said retailers usually “reset” shelf space allocations in the spring and fall.
“[Retailers] generally take sales data from April, May, June, July, and then based off of that data in that time period, they will reallocate shelf space,” Frericks told DailyMail.com over the weekend.
“That shelf space will be allocated to Miller Lite, Coors Light, Yuengling, and some of the other brands that have taken share from them,” Frericks said.
Mulvaney posted two videos and images of herself as a Bud Light marketing partner on April 1, including one of her in a bubble bath surrounded by Bud Light cans.
Another image included a 16 oz can of Bud Light with her face on it — a commemorative can that was given to her to celebrate her one-year anniversary as a woman.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
