Bud Light boycott hits salespeople as cuts in commissions continue thanks to disastrous partnership
Salespeople working for independent wholesalers that sell Anheuser-Busch beverages are feeling the pain in their wallets of the ongoing boycott of Bud Light following its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Sales of Bud Light have declined for seven consecutive weeks after the product endorsement from the controversial TikToker garnered immediate backlash.
The partnership sparked protests and backlash and parent company Anheuser-Busch has shed $27 billion in value in mere months.
The financial blow the company continues to stomach is having trickle-down effects across its distribution channels.
Incomes have been slashed for the salespeople who work at the roughly 500 independent wholesalers that sell Anheuser-Busch products to restaurants, bars, and grocery stores.
Some reported losing $2,000 last month compared to the typical May because of the backlash.
Bud Light has faced boycotts since the April partnership with Dylan Mulvaney that has led to a drop in sales
Since partnering with Mulvaney, Bud Light's parent company Anheuser-Busch has faced boycotts and declining sales
Former Anhesuer-Busch InBev - AB's parent company - executive Anson Frericks recently told ABC News the product boycott is undoubtedly bringing about financial pain for the thousands of salespeople who work for wholesalers who depend largely on performance-based compensation.
Compensation for salespeople varies across distributors and markets, but according to Frericks, a typical salesperson makes around $60,000 per year, including $20,000 in variable pay, which depends largely on commission.
'Good people are going to start leaving because they aren't making money,' he told ABC.
An anonymous supervisor from a Florida-based distributor told the outlet that the average salesperson made about $2,000 less in the month of May than they normally would have over based on figures from the last handful several years.
Numbers are suffering primarily due to a decline in Bud Light sales that reached as high as a 60 percent drop off over the week that ended on Memorial Day.
'This has really, really killed a lot of the guys who are commission-based. That's who it's really hurting. There's nothing they could've done - this was thrown in their faces,' said the supervisor.
On an earnings call last month, Anheuser-Busch InBev CEO Michel Doukeris gestured to the stain the boycott has placed on distributors and salespeople.
'This situation has impacted our people and especially our frontline workers: The delivery drivers, sales representatives, our wholesalers, Bud owners and servers,' he said.
'These people are the fabric of our business. They are our neighbors, family members, and friends. They are in every community in America. We've been doing everything we can to support our teams.'
Bud Light has tried to win consumers back, with no luck, and now some say they have lost commissions because of the decline in sales
'This has really, really killed a lot of the guys who are commission-based. That's who it's really hurting,' a wholesale supervisor said
Doukeris also said that Anheuser-Busch InBev provided financial support to frontline workers at the independent distributors, giving each employee $500 and additional ad spending for the month of May.
A statement from the company read: 'Anheuser-Busch employs over 18,000 people and our independent wholesaler partners have an additional 47,000 valued colleagues. The current situation has impacted our people and especially our front-line workers including delivery drivers and sales representatives.
'These people are our neighbors, family members and friends. They are in every community in America. As we move forward, we will continue doing everything we can to support our teams while working tirelessly to do what we do best - bringing people together over a beer.'
Despite Bud Light and CEO Michel Doukeris' best efforts, the brand hasn't seen any rebound in sales since the Mulvaney partnership.
About two months ago, Mulvaney posted the digital content to her accounts to coincide with the NCAA March Madness tournament - joking that she wasn't even sure what sport she was promoting.
The campaign was the brainchild of Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, who was placed on leave soon after the incident. Her boss, Daniel Blake, Budweiser's group vice president for marketing, was also removed from his role in the backlash.
For the week ending May 20, Bud Light sales across the US fell nearly 26 percent compared to the same period last year. For the week ending May 6, in-store sales plummeted 23.6 percent. And the week before that, ending April 29, sales dropped by 23.3 percent.
This follows declines in sales for the week ending April 22, which saw a 21.4 percent decline. Seven days earlier, the dip has been 17 percent, according to NielsenIQ data provided to Dailymail.com by Bump Williams Consultancy.
The data - showing that US sales of Bud Light are dropping by as much as 20 percent each week - is being uniformly viewed by industry experts as a negative trend that may not reverse itself anytime soon.
Beer Business Daily editor Harry Schuhmacher told Fox News Digital that the 'whole industry is in shock'.
He claimed the newfound demand for lagers not owned by Anheuser-Bush could result in a trickle-down effect on the industry.
He said: 'Even Bud's competitors aren't really dancing on the grave because they know it could have happened to them.'
Source: Daily Mail
