Bud Light is offering generous rebates for Memorial Day that in some cases amount to free beer as Anheuser-Busch continues its scramble to recover from the Dylan Mulvaney controversy.
Now through May 31, Bud Light is advertising a “summer rebate” to “make your Memorial Day weekend easier to enjoy” where customers who purchase a 15-pack or larger of Bud Light, Budweiser, Budweiser Select or Budweiser Select 55 will receive a $15 rebate.
For reference, a 15-pack of Bud Light is listed for $12.99 on Target’s website, the same price as a 15-pack of Budweiser.
The rebate will be paid via a digital prepaid card, according to Bud Light’s site. Customers must provide a proof of purchase — an image of the case’s barcode and of their receipt — to get the prepaid card mailed to their home address.
Up to two rebate submissions can me made through the end of the month: one between May 17 and May 23, and another between May 24 and May 31, according to the terms and conditions.
The offer’s also available for packs of Budweiser Select, a light lager-style beer, and Select 55, a golden lager made with caramel malt.
The rebate offer comes as Bud Light sales have worsened for the sixth consecutive week since April 1, when trans influencer Mulvaney shared an Instagram post of a custom Bud Light can the Anheuser-Busch brand sent her to celebrate “365 Days of Girlhood.”
Rebates have already been offered on Bud Light by individual vendors looking to rid themselves of the embattled company. An unidentified beer vendor previously slapped a $20 rebate on its $19.98 case of 24 beers.
Sales of America’s once-most-popular beer were down 24.6% for the week ended May 13 compared to a year ago — slightly worse than the 23.6% dip they suffered a week earlier, according to Bump Williams Consulting and Nielson IQ research.
Cases of unsold Bud Light that expired on liquor stores’ shelves are being bought back by Anheuser-Busch as the beer maker continues to make amends with customers who were put off by Mulvaney’s social media posts and boycott the beer.
Bud Light also is revving up its patriotism by sponsoring a veterans group for the first time, and has plans to appear in football and country music commercials.
The aftermath of the ill-fated partnership is now also affecting other brands in Anheuser-Busch’s portfolio, including Budweiser and Michelob Ultra.
Michelob Ultra, which was the No. 3 beer with more than $3.3 billion in sales in 2022, saw a 2.9% dip in sales the week ending May 13 versus a year ago, Bump Williams Consulting and Nielson IQ data revealed.
And Budweiser, last year’s No. 7 beer with more than $1.8 billion in sales, saw a staggering 9.7% drop in sales in each of the two most recent weeks.
Sales of Busch Light were down 6.8% compared to 0.3% decline the previous week, while Anheuser-Busch’s Natural Light sales were down by 2.8% in the week ended May 13 compared to a 2.5% decline the previous week.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
