Turnin’ off the ‘Light’

Bud distributors decide that the party’s over

Many Anheuser-Busch distributors say they are resigned to their painful Bud Light losses — and that they have given up on luring back disaffected customers following the Dylan Mulvaney fiasco, The Post has learned.

After four months of hiring freezes and layoffs — with some beer truck drivers getting heckled and harassed even as Bud Light sales have dropped by more than 25% — AnheuserBusch wholesalers have accepted that they have lost a chunk of their customers for good and need to focus on a new crop of drinkers.

“Consumers have made a choice,” said an executive at a Texas-based beer distributor who did not want to be identified. “They have left [Bud Light] and that’s how it’s going to be. I don’t envision a big percentage of them coming back.”

Sales of other AnheuserBusch beers including Budweiser, Michelob Ultra and Busch Light also have fallen since Bud Light’s marketing tie-up with transgender influencer Mulvaney.

What’s more, those lost customers have likely found that Bud Light’s competitors, including Coors Light and Miller Lite, “are a very similar product.” Winning the beer wars comes down to “whoever is best at marketing,” the executive said.

“There is an increasing feeling that this [Bud Light] decline rate could last for a while and the distributors are worried about losing those drinkers to other similar brands,” David Steinmann, executive editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights, told The Post.

Two social media posts by Mulvaney on April 1 — holding a 16-ounce can of Bud Light with her image on it, and her sitting in a bubble bath surrounded by Bud Light cans — sparked a backlash that has lasted longer than most expected.

“The strategy of targeting younger, newer consumers is the right one,” Michael Stone, chairman of Beanstalk Group, a New Yorkbased branding firm, told The Post. “But Anheuser Busch made a mistake executing on the strategy.”

One silver lining for Anheuser-Busch distributors is the rise of Modelo Especial — the No. 2 beer brand, which Anheuser-Busch owns outside of the US.

Rival Constellation Brands distributes Modelo in the US, where it has been outselling Bud Light on a weekly basis since May.