They wanted to change customer base so pretty much decided they didn't care about their current customers. It's been happening all along. It was easy for companies catering to lesbians to cater to transbians as they outnumber lesbians. It was even relatively easy for companies catering to women to forcefully market to transwomen as plenty of real women go along with trans ideology and the amount of women who will boycott was relatively low. Then even when the scales shifted, ESG money made up for lost business.

But Bud Lite was a perfect storm. One, they pushed too far. Most of their customer base are straight men and a hell of a lot more straight men are willing to push back. Two, Musk's Twitter allows this to be discussed in a way that would have been impossible a year before. Three, ESG money is less available as Vanguard is backing off it's programmes. And probably even Four, the increases in cost of living means people have less discretionary income. Meaning if you are buying luxury items you want to feel really good about it. Switching brands simply felt better to a lot of people at a time when they need to feel more control about how they spend money.