**"Not Our Beliefs" - Bud Light Distributor Sends Out Public Plea to Bring Back Customers**
"Not Our Beliefs" - Bud Light Distributor Sends Out Public Plea to Bring Back Customers
_Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,_ (https://www.theepochtimes.com/bud-light-distributor-sends-out-public-plea-to-bring-back-customers_5280859.html)
A Bud Light distributor in Alabama issued a public plea to bring back customers who boycotted the brand after it produced a can with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s face.
Steve Tatum, with **the Montgomery-based Bama Budweiser distributor, deployed a radio advertisement for several area stations, pleading with customers to purchase Bud Light again.**
In April and during the first week of May, sales of Bud Light were down significantly, while sales of other Anheuser-Busch products also dropped amid the Mulvaney backlash.
> _“We too at Bama Budweiser are upset about it and have made our feelings known to the top leadership at Anheuser-Busch,” Tatum said in the ad, according (https://www.al.com/news/2023/05/montgomery-beer-distributor-on-bud-light-controversy-you-deserve-to-know-the-truth.html) to multiple news reports._
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> _“The voice of the consumer has been heard, and Anheuser-Busch has taken action.”_
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‘#BudLightPartner’
Like Anheuser-Busch’s leadership, Tatum also tried to distance Bud Light from Mulvaney, a biological male who had posted the custom-made Bud Light can and used a hashtag “#BudLightPartner” in early April, drawing significant ire from consumers and conservative celebrities. Several popular country singers, including Travis Tritt and John Rich, said they wouldn’t serve the beer, while Kid Rock posted a video of him shooting up cases of Bud Light.
> _“We at Bama Budweiser, an independent wholesaler, employ around 100 people who live here, work here, and our children go to school here,” Tatum said (https://www.newsweek.com/bud-light-distributor-issues-public-plea-bring-back-angry-customers-1801500) in the ad._
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> **_“We do not, and as I said before, did not support this issue involving Dylan Mulvaney. There was one single can made. It was not for sale and wasn’t properly approved. As a result, the Bud Light brand has new leadership.”_**
Tatum added:
> _“ **Dylan Mulvaney is not under contract with Bud Light.** The videos you may have seen are Mulvaney’s own social media posts that went viral and many web-based news outlets have distorted the story. **You deserve to know the truth, and life is too short to let a couple of individuals decide what you can eat or drink or spend your hard-earned money on**. And remember, making friends is our business, not enemies.”_
Drop in Sales
Latest industry data shows that Bud Light’s sales dropped in the first week of May, falling 23.6 percent in the week ending May 6, reported (https://beernet.com/latest-bud-light-numbers-have-declines-hit-their-floor/) Beer Business Daily using Nielsen IQ data. In the final week of April, sales for the beer dropped 23.3 percent, the data show.
> _**“Trends aren’t getting much worse, but certainly not getting any better either,”** Beer Business Daily wrote in a commentary on the figures._
Tatum told AL.com that he’s received positive feedback for his ad campaign. However, he said that there has been no response from Anheuser-Busch or Bud Light corporate officials.
> _**“I’m just trying to look after Bama Budweiser,” he said. “I’ve worked too hard to give it all away.”**_
The distributor added (https://www.newsweek.com/bud-light-distributor-issues-public-plea-bring-back-angry-customers-1801500) to Newsweek that “I felt like we had to get a message out there,” adding: _**“We are tied to a corporation, but that’s not necessarily our beliefs in our market here in Alabama.”**_
Sales volumes for Anheuser-Busch products also dropped 9.7 percent for the first week in May, up from the 11.4 percent decline in late April, according to industry data. Anheuser-Busch, which has headquarters in the Netherlands, also makes Budweiser, Michelob, Stella Artois, and Beck’s, among other beers.
‘Misinformation and Confusion’
Anheuser-Busch CEO Michel Doukeris told the Financial Times (https://www.ft.com/content/dc63c64c-d32e-460a-afdc-458c94860c93) in a recent interview that his company believes the Bud Light boycott was triggered by “misinformation and confusion” circulating on social media and sought to distance his firm from Mulvaney. He said that Mulvaney wasn’t part of an official marketing campaign and that “one can” was produced with Mulvaney’s face.
> _**“It was one post. It was not an advertisement,”**_ Doukeris told the outlet.
He alleged viral videos o…