As Bud Light continues to face plummeting sales amid a conservative boycott over its collaboration with a transgender influencer, other brands made by parent company Anheuser-Busch are also taking a hit.
Sales of Michelob Ultra fell by 4.3 percent in the week that ended July 1 compared with last year, and Busch Light was down 8.5 percent, the New York Post reported. Both brands are, like Bud Light, owned by the Anheuser-Busch brewing company.
"Budweiser trends have been slipping for a very long time, but it’s the Michelob Ultra negative numbers and now Busch Light negative trends that are most alarming to me," Bump Williams, whose consulting firm ran the numbers from NielsenIQ data, told the Post. "They were very healthy prior to April 1."
Sales of Bud Light the week prior, ending on June 24, were 27.9 percent lower than during the same period last year. The brand's troubling numbers came despite Bud Light giving out rebates for free beer ahead of Independence Day weekend.
Bud Light this year lost its position as America's top selling beer. It was the second-best-selling beer in the four weeks leading up to June 3, making up 7.3 percent of U.S. retail-store beer purchases. Bud Light is now no longer one of America's 10 most popular beers.
Bud Light's problems come after months of boycotting by conservatives. The brand's troubles began in April, when its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney became public. Mulvaney revealed the collaboration on social media on April 1, showing a Bud Light can featuring the influencer's face. Mulvaney also posted a video drinking Bud Light in a bathtub.