Miller Lite has seen a steady increase in sales in the past two months, despite facing calls for a boycott over a supposedly “woke” advertising campaign for Women’s History Month.
According to data by Bump Williams Consulting and Nielsen IQ, provided to Newsweek, in the week ending May 20, sales revenue increased 18.2 percent compared with the same week a year ago, while beer brands in the Anheuser-Busch stable suffered following a backlash against Bud Light’s partnership with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer.
The latest industry sales figures appear to lend support to the notion that the threat of a boycott of Miller Lite has been far less realized than its main competitor, and as a result the beer brand has fared better—even taking on customers who deserted Bud Light.
Miller Lite’s advertising campaign—first announced in March—celebrated women’s historic role in beer brewing and distanced itself from prior marketing campaigns that featured scantily-clad women in provocative poses, which the company itself described as “sexist” and “outdated.”
As part of the marketing push, Miller Lite said it would be buying back its old advertising material to turn into fertilizer for female farmers to produce over 1,000 pounds of hops. This would then be given to 200 female brewers to make an estimated 330,000 beers.
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While the campaign faced pushback from conservative commentators, Miller Lite may need those beers sooner rather than later.
In the four weeks to May 20, Miller Lite sales revenue increased 20.7 percent on the back of an increase in volumes sold of 14.4 percent. In the previous four-week period, to April 29, the beer brand saw sales rise 19.1 percent and sales volumes up 12.8 percent compared to the same period in 2022.
By comparison, competitor Bud Light’s sales revenue contracted 24.3 percent in the four weeks to May 20—believed to be the result of a boycott of the beer brand over it sending a commemorative can to Mulvaney to celebrate her first year of transitioning to a woman. The controversy has had a knock-on effect on other Anheuser-Busch labels.
Miller Lite is not the only Molson Coors beer brand to see improved sales of late.
Coors Light revenue increased 22 percent on the previous year in the four weeks to May 20, while Keystone Light saw a 13.4 percent rise in revenue. Foster’s, meanwhile, saw a 0.5 percent sales income boon in the same period, despite a sales volume contraction of 4.4 percent.
When asked about the possibility of Miller Lite facing an impending decline in sales, Dave Williams, vice president for analytics and insights at Bump Williams Consulting, told Newsweek that there was “nothing to report at the moment.”
Newsweek approached Molson Coors via email for comment on Tuesday.
Kelly O’Keefe, founding partner of Brand Federation, who has advised companies including Capital One, Walmart and UPS, suggested that Bud Light and Miller Lite’s responses to their respective controversies had been markedly different, and as such would yield different results.
While Anheuser-Busch went silent and placed two of its top marketing executives on leave, Miller Lite’s parent company Molson Coors stood by the advertising campaign and those who had created it. O’Keefe previously predicted that Miller Lite would see “very little pushback” as a result.