A-B InBev Chief Executive Officer Michel Doukeris said the steep drop in sales of Bud Light beer in April represented just 1% of the international corporation's global volume of beer for that period.
Doukeris made his first public comments about the controversy on an earnings call to investors and analysts to discuss the company's first-quarter financial results.
The controversy began on April 1, when transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, 26, posted a video of herself sipping Bud Light in conjunction with the NCAA basketball tournaments and showing a photo of a can of the beer she had received with her picture on it. An informal boycott followed.
Sales of Bud Light have dropped as much as 26% from one week to the next since then, but the boycott did not affect the company's first-quarter results because the quarter ended March 31.
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Doukeris reiterated the points the company has been making in letters to its retail customers and to the press, using the same words: "This was one single can given to one social media influencer. It was not made for production or sale to the general public. This can is not a formal campaign or advertisement," he said twice during the call.
To win back its unhappy customers, Doukeris said the company will triple the amount of advertising money it had planned to spend on Bud Light this summer. Using funds that had previously been allocated for other global purposes, the marketing campaign will especially be aligned with musical and sporting events.
While it is too early to determine how much damage has been done to the brand by the controversy, Doukeris noted that other Anheuser-Busch brands are being affected in the United States as well. However, Bud Light has suffered the brunt of the consumers' fury.
Noting that there has already been "some stabilization" in day-to-day sales, Doukeris put his corporate faith in the brand's current advertising slogan.
"We know 'Easy to drink, easy to enjoy' is a strong message for Bud Light," he said.Â
Also on the earnings call, Doukeris announced that the company's net revenue was up 11% on increased sales, by volume, of 0.1%.
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An analyst says that if nothing is done to address an informal boycott, the brand runs the risk of losing its status as the most-popular beer in the country.
The brewing giant also said the can with a picture of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney is "not a formal campaign or advertisement."