Ladies and gentlemen, there are now ripples in the water.
If you’re wondering what in the heck I’m talking about, well, allow me an opportunity to explain. Ever since popular beer brand Bud Light cut a partnership deal with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney — in which the biological man who thinks he’s a woman had his face blasted all over cans of the product — there’s been a massive boycott that has seen parent company Anheuser-Busch lose billions of dollars in market value.
The company is actually at the point of having to buy back Bud Light that is expiring on store shelves. And people say that boycotts aren’t effective? Really? Seems like this one is working. And now the negative economic impact is rippling out to the companies that help the company produce their beverage.
According to the Daily Wire, hundreds of people have now lost their jobs at a glass bottling plant due to the Bud Light boycott. The Ardagh Group, which is an international glass manufacturer, recently announced it was shutting down a plant located in Wilson, North Caroline this month. The company has 400 employees.
The company is reportedly going to be shutting down a plant in Ruston, Louisiana, which has 245 workers.
“Our multi-year performance optimization program, involving targeted investments in enhanced capacity and ongoing cost optimization, underpins our ability to continue to provide existing and prospective customers with high quality, American-made sustainable glass packaging,” the company went on to say in a statement.
“While the company did not give a specific reason as to why the plants were closing, internal company documents from mid-May obtained by NBC affiliate WRAL News said that the company was shutting down the production lines ‘due to slow sales with Anheuser Inbev,’ the parent company of Bud Light,” the report said. “The publication said ‘multiple longtime employees’ at the North Carolina plant confirmed they primarily made bottles for Bud Light and Budweiser.”
The Daily Wire noted, “Anheuser-Busch has lost billions of dollars in market value since the controversy erupted with Mulvaney in early April, and new numbers released late last month show that weekly sales for Bud Light have continued to plummet, dropping 26.8% for the week ending June 10.”
“This was a tough week for Bud Light and other beer brands,” remarked Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ. Beer sales overall took a dive the week ending June 10, which included brands like Budweiser (10%), Natural Light (2.3%), and Michelob Ultra (2.4%).
Mulvaney recently posted a video on social media where he ripped into Anheuser-Busch, stating he was addressing the issue of the boycott because he, and I quote, had an “uncomfy” feeling he wanted to get off his chest.
“I took a brand deal with a company that I loved. And I posted a sponsored video to my page,” Mulvaney explained in the post. “And it must have been a slow news week, because the way that this ad got blown up, you would have thought I was like, on a billboard, or on a TV commercial or something major — but no, it was just an Instagram video.”
The advertisement that kicked off the boycott featured Mulvaney displaying a can that had his face on it, which he claims led to “more bullying and transphobia than I could have ever imagined.”
“For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all,” he continued in the video. “Because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want. And the hate doesn’t end with me, it has serious and grave consequences for the rest of our community.”
Not long after the video was posted, Anheuser-Busch issued a response Mulvaney stating the company remains “committed to the programs and partnerships we have forged over decades with organizations across a number of communities, including those in the LGBTQ+ community.”
Maybe, just maybe, Bud Light ought to man up and apologize for politicizing their product and for supporting the delusions of mentally ill individuals? Taking this kind of action and dedicating themselves to creating the best product they can for their target demographic is the only way to bring this boycott to an end.
Go woke, go broke.
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