Experts are weighing in on why they believe that Bud Light lost out to Modelo Especial as America's most popular beer last month, and it's not just because of its Dylan Mulvaney partnership.
Modelo Especial has increased sales by $333 million since 2022, according to behavior analytics firm Circana in data cited by CBS. Bud Light, in comparison, sold $297 million worth of Bud Light for the "four weeks ending May 28," according to the same report.
A professor said that at its core, Bud Light's alleged market loss to Modelo is a story about broken trust.
"Bud Light’s missteps felt like a betrayal to both its liberal and conservative customers, and that trust is going to take months, if not years, to rebuild," Daniel Korschun, an associate professor of marketing at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, told The New York Times.
BUD LIGHT LOST OUT TO MODELO FOR TITLE OF AMERICA’S MOST POPULAR BEER IN MAY: REPORT
Some consumer experts are arguing that Bud Light's popularity has been falling for years.
"[Bud Light] is a brand that was reliably shrinking in sales every single year for over a decade," Matthew Barry, industry manager of food and beverage at the Euromonitor International consumer brand data group, told NBC News.
Others are pointing out to changing tastes, as younger generations "are now more inclined to seek out imports, even if the price point is higher," according to Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher.
Even if general interest in Bud Light has fallen in the past decade, the months since the beer giant partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in an online influencer campaign have been an especially difficult period for Bud Light.
Some stores have been forced to give away the beer for free, with Bud Light even resorting to buying back unsold, expired beer from wholesalers, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Other reports from local distributors of Bud Light indicate that consumer anger continues to burn hot against the company, with Americans using "car horns, middle fingers and jokes" to mock Bud Light, according to a recent report from ABC News.
But Barry claimed that business trends even before the Mulvaney fiasco indicated that Modelo's stock was rising.
"If you project the pre-boycott sales trends into the future, Modelo was going to hit No. 1 status in the U.S. within a few years anyway," Barry reportedly told NBC News.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light's parent company, for additional comment.
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Grupo Modelo, the Mexican brewer, is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, which also owns Bud Light, the Associated Press explained. The New York-based Constellation Brands has been licensed to sell Modelo in the U.S. since 2013.
