OutKick founder Clay Travis conducted an experiment over the weekend where he offered various cans of free beer at a concert, concluding that drinking Bud Light is now taboo in public.
Travis posted several videos of his cooler throughout the night as a “weekend experiment” at a concert in the Nashville area. The experiment allowed those who passed to “Pick which beer you want.”
“No one would take the Bud Light all night long. Big issue going forward for Bud Light is many don’t even want to be seen with product. They just pick another brand,” he said.
The first video he posted from 6:45 p.m. showed his cooler full of multiple kinds of beer, including Michelob Ultra, Yuengling, and Bud Light. He posted a second video towards the end of the evening at 10:15 p.m. where the cooler only appeared to have cans of Bud Light remaining, indicating that those who took free beer would only choose the other brands.
“I’m not a marketing expert, but the only beer left” he said, is “Bud Light,” adding that this is “not ideal, not good” for the brand.
In a following tweet he commented on how Bud Light’s current scandal has been an “unmitigated disaster” for the brand.
“Overall consumption of Bud Light is now down 26%. That’s an unmitigated disaster for the brand. And many are now avoiding the beer to avoid being mocked for drinking the beer,” he tweeted.
“There’s no quick fix here, brand is slaughtered in red state beer drinking communities. Bet there is hardly any at SEC tailgates this fall.”
Bud Light faced massive backlash after a marketing gimmick with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.
The company created commemorative beer for Mulvaney celebrating the activist’s first full year of “girlhood.”
Mulvaney, who has interviewed President Biden, recently made headlines for suggesting it should be illegal to misgender transgender people.
The company also faced backlash for when its marketing vice president Alissa Heinerscheid said in an interview that she was inspired to update the “fratty” and “out of touch” humor of the beer company with inclusive messaging to attract younger customers.
Heinerscheid and her boss Daniel Blake have since been placed on leave.
Travis recently spoke about the social implications of the scandal across the United States during an interview on “Fox & Friends.”
“For Bud Light, I think this is an unmitigated disaster and it is completely and totally self-inflicted. I don’t really know how they are going to climb out of this mess, because people are now ridiculing others when they see them drinking Bud Light,” he said.
While Travis observed that Bud Light once was the popular choice for a casual beer, “Now, many people, when they walk up to the bar, or they go out to the grocery, and they’re buying beer, they’re thinking to themselves, ‘I’ll buy anything other than Bud Light.’”
He added that other major companies should be far more wary of offending consumers.
“I think this is a warning to all brands out there that have learned over the past 20 years or so there are no consequences for going super woke in terms of trying to appeal to the far left wing in this country,” he said.