Coors Light to sponsor Denver Pride parade despite recent boycotts

Coors Light plans to move forward as the title sponsor for the 2023 Denver Pride Parade, despite the recent boycott of its competitor, Bud Light.

Parent company Anheuser-Busch is still recovering from customer backlash over its Bud Light promotional campaign featuring Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender-identifying social media influencer. Since the controversial partnership, the beer-maker's stock price has dropped approximately 15%, and U.S. sales have taken a steep dive.

Marcel Marcondes, Anheuser-Busch's global chief marketing officer, recently called the boycott a "wake-up call."

Bud Light was not the only company to see fallout for alienating its core customer base. Retailers Kohl's and Target also faced calls for boycotts after stocking LGBT-themed apparel for children.

Axios reported that collectively, Anheuser-Busch, Kohl's, and Target have lost $28.7 billion in market value since April.

As a result, Bud Light fell off as America's top-selling beer. The company scrambled to regain losses by investing in marketing campaigns and offering to buy back expired beer from retailers.

Despite the effective boycotts, Coors Light has decided to stand firm in its decision to sponsor the annual Denver Pride Parade as the event's title sponsor.

Scheduled for this Sunday, the Coors Light Denver Pride Parade anticipates approximately 15,000 people to participate in the march and another 100,000 or more spectators, the event's organizers told Axios.

Rex Fuller, the CEO of the Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Colorado, claimed that none of the event's major sponsors had voiced concern about potential boycotts.

Additional sponsors of the parade include Target, Nissan, U.S. Bank, Absolut Vodka, Visa, and Wells Fargo.

Fuller told Axios this is "not the time to give into bullying."

"This is kind of the hard part of allyship," he said. "We are in a time period when it can be quite fashionable in some corners to pretty openly express homophobic, transphobic (sentiments) and racism, and I think that can make this uncomfortable at some points."

While Molson Coors, the parent company of Coors Light, declined to comment on its sponsorship of the event, spokesperson Adam Collins told the outlet that the beer-maker has been supporting the parade for decades.

"At the end of a long day or the start of a great night, everyone deserves to feel comfortable having a drink and being themselves," Collins told Fox News Digital. "That's why beer, wine and spirits companies like ours have supported Pride for decades, why we'll do so in 2023 and why we'll continue to do so for decades to come."

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