Bud Light Now Offering Free Beer to Wholesalers amid Plummeting Sales

In response to plummeting Bud Light sales in the last week of April, parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev is reportedly offering every wholesaler employee a free case of beer.

The gesture, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes after a report from Bump Williams Consulting, a firm that specializes in the alcohol beverage market, revealed that sales of Bud Light dropped 26 percent after the brand partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, costing distributors millions of dollars daily.

“This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement,” reads a letter to distributors from the company, referring to a special Mulvaney-branded can sent to the influencer. “Our new Vice President of Bud Light and all of us at Anheuser-Busch are committed to reminding all of our consumers why they love Bud Light and why they’ve made it the #1 beer in America.”

In mid April, the alcohol company released a new advertisement full of patriotic imagery, seemingly appealing to consumers frustrated by the Mulvaney partnership. “Let me tell you a story about a beer rooted in the heart of America,” a gravelly-voiced narrator says as scenes of Budweiser’s trademark Clydesdale horse gallops through the Grand Canyon and underneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

“Found in a community where a handshake is a sure contract. Brewed for those who found opportunity in the challenge and hope in tomorrow. Raised by generations willing to sip, share, risk, remember. This is a story bigger than beer: this is the story of the American spirit,” the clip concludes.

That ad was followed up with another commercial, which aired during the NFL draft in late April, and featured the message: “Easy to Drink, East to Enjoy.” The expensively placed ad was set to the country music classic “Chicken Fried” by Zac Brown Band.

The unexpected blowback led Anheuser-Busch executive Brendan Whitworth to release a statement apologize for causing division. “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer,” the CEO said in a video to wholesalers.

Within a week, Whitworth also placed Bud Light vice president Alissa Heinerscheid, the brainchild of the Mulvaney collaboration, on leave. The marketing guru originally sought to rejuvenate the brand by “shifting the tone” away from its traditional demographic which she derided as “fratty, sort of out of touch humor.”

“It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men. And representation is sort of at the heart of evolution.,” Heinerschied said in one video.

However, the rapidly shifting response on Bud Light’s part is worrying some distributors.

“They didn’t need to take this risk,” one anonymous wholesaler told the Journal. “I lost my cowboy bars and now I could lose my gay bars, too.”