Bud Light turns to Travis Kelce to win back customers after conservative boycott

Bud Light has cut an ad featuring Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in a bid to win back its customer base following a disastrous partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

The beer brand saw its sales plummet after Mulvaney posted photos on Instagram with a custom Bud Light can created to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the influencer's gender transition. The brand has since lost its status as the most popular beer in the United States, losing out to the Mexican brand Modelo.

Bud Light's new ad appears to be an effort to win back a largely male customer bloc disaffected by the Mulvaney campaign. Entitled "Backyard Grunts with Travis Kelce," the 15-second clip shows the football star and a group of exclusively male associates cracking open cans of the beer and loudly grunting.

Anheuser-Busch blamed the disastrous Mulvaney campaign on an ad agency, but also placed several marketing executives on leave amid the boycott.

Sales dropped 24.4% in the four-week period ending June 3, accounting for 7.3% of total American beer sales. Modelo, by contrast saw a 12.2% surge in sales and claimed 8.4% of the market during that same period.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.