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Guinness named most popular beer in US while Bud Light falls
Guinness, Corona and Heineken were named the three “most-liked” beers of 2023, while Bud Light lost its footing, slipping from the top 10.
YouGov survey results saw Guinness, Corona and Heineken win approval from 58%, 53% and 51% of Americans respectively, but reports in Newsweek noted how Bud Light had dropped off the top ten list entirely with the data showing it placing at number 15.
The survey, which was judged by public approval between the second quarters of 2022 and 2023, revealed that despite the proportion of Americans who “liked” Bud Light staying consistent at 42%, the popularity of rival beers had meanwhile surged, pushing it from ninth-most popular brand in 2022 into a tie position as 14th-most popular in 2023 on a par with other beer brands such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller Genuine Draft and Miller Light.
According to Newsweek, Bud Light has reportedly also lost its position due to being targeted with a boycott campaign following its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. The paper stated that this could be deduced since Bud Light sales fell around the same time, with the company selling 31.3% less in the week ending 24 June than it did during the same period the previous year.
For the survey, YouGov is said to have polled a nationally representative sample of 1,468 Americans during the second quarter of 2023, which runs from April to the end of June.
In the four weeks ending 28 May 2023, Bud Light sales were US$297 million, a 22.8% fall from the same period in 2022, according to Circana/IRI data figures cited by Newsweek. This meant that the team behind Modelo Especial, which sold US$333 million during those four weeks in 2023, was legitimately able to state it had dethroned Bud Light as the “number one” beer in America.
Last month, Mulvaney responded to Bud Light owner AB InBev accusing the brand of failing to support her after she came under attack over their partnership.
In a video posted to her social media accounts, Mulvaney stated: “I took a brand deal with a company I loved and I posted a sponsored video to my page and it must have been a slow news week because the way that this ad got blown up, you would have thought I was on a billboard or on a TV commercial, or something major. But no, it was just an Instagram video. I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me but they never did.”
Mulvaney added: “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.”
Despite the controversies surrounding Bud Light, America’s most popular beer brand, Guinness, owned by British drinks company Diageo, is upholding many recent successes.
For instance, added to its success in Britain and the US, Diageo is set to increase Guinness 0.0 production by almost 300% following a €25 million (US$27.2m) investment into its St. James’s Gate site.
Plus, at the end of last year the Guinness brand became named as the most popular pint in Britain after Diageo revealed in its first-half fiscal results that showed how the Irish stout had overtaken popular value lager brand Carling for the first time.