Country music legend John Rich announced Wednesday that he would be pulling Bud Light beer products from his iconic Nashville, Tennessee bar Redneck Riviera as a result of customer backlash from the beer brand’s controversial marketing campaign surrounding transgender Dylan Mulvaney.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Rich explained his decision to pull the beer, which had been one of the bar’s top sellers up until the brand’s recent woke ads were released:
“I own a bar in downtown Nashville. Our number one selling beer up until a few days ago was what? Bud Light. We got cases and cases and cases of it sitting back there. But in the past several days you’re hard-pressed to find anyone ordering one. So as a business owner, I go, hey if you aren’t ordering it, we got to put something else in here. At the end of the day, that’s capitalism. That’s how it works.”
WATCH:
John Rich:
"I own a bar in downtown Nashville called Redneck Riviera. Our #1 selling beer up until a few days ago was what? Bud Light. We got cases of it sitting back there. But in the past several days, you’re hard-pressed to find anyone ordering one." pic.twitter.com/EAi1otWDMd
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) April 12, 2023
Rich becomes the third highly notable country music star to join the ongoing boycott against Bud Light by pulling the product off of his shelves, joining Travis Tritt and Kid Rock.
Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, is feeling the pain as of late in the stock market. Earlier this week, conservative commentator Rogan O’Handley pointed out that the company had lost nearly $4 billion in market value since Bud Light launched its transgender crusade.
“Don’t let Dems lie to you – Conservative Boycotts WORK,” O’Handley wrote to Twitter with a screenshot of the company’s market cap chart.
On March 31, Anheuser Busch had a $132.38 billion market cap
As of today, it’s now $128.4 billion
You know what that means?
The Woke Bud Light campaign has already shaved off nearly **$4 BILLION** in company value
Don’t let Dems lie to you – Conservative Boycotts WORK pic.twitter.com/xLGbs6F1MV
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) April 10, 2023
Earlier this week, a podcast visit by Bud Light’s new Vice President of Marketing resurfaced, shedding light on the company’s seemingly radical priority shift from its traditional customer base – a “fratty, out of touch” crowd, in her own words – to far-lefties and transgenders.
I’m a businesswoman, I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand there will be no future for Bud Light.
So I had this super clear mandate. “It’s like, we need to evolve and elevate this incredibly iconic brand. And my…what I brought to that was a belief in, okay, what does evolve and elevate mean?
It means inclusivity. It means shifting the tone. It means having a campaign that’s truly inclusive and feels lighter and brighter and different and appeals to women and to men.
We had this hangover, I mean Bud Light had been kind of a brand of fratty, kind of out of touch humor, and it was really important that we had another approach.
Watch Bud Light marketing veep Alissa Heinerscheid’s full interview here.