Bud Light tries to win back conservatives one grunt at a time in a new ad featuring NFL star Travis Kelce

• Bud Light released a new ad with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce, titled "Backyard Grunts."
• The 15-second spot showed traditionally masculine characters grunting and sighing with beer in hand.

Bud Light aims to win back conservatives with a new ad featuring Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce and several decidedly less athletic men gingerly easing themselves into various seats — and grunting.

The commercial, dubbed "Backyard Grunts," premiered Sunday before the Fourth of July holiday in an apparent attempt to turn around a months-long slide in sales for the former beer of choice for middle America. Bud Light faced backlash over partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in April.

The new 15-second spot depicted various backyard gatherings and has no dialogue apart from grunts, sighs, and Kelce saying "yeah."

In the clip, the six-foot-five, 250-pound tight end never actually touches — much less tastes — the featured product.

Anheuser-Busch US CEO Brendan Whitworth dodged a question last week regarding whether the promotion with Mulvaney was a "mistake" or not.

"For us, what we need to deeply understand and appreciate is the consumer and what they want, what they care about, and what they expect from big brands," Whitworth told CBS.

Mulvaney broke her silence a day later, saying that Bud Light representatives never reached out to her as she weathered the reaction to her partnership with the brand.

"For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want," Mulvaney said in a video.

The iconic blue can has been supplanted by Mexican import Modelo Especial as the top beer in America, and Whitworth said Anheuser-Busch has since tripled its spend on Bud Light advertising.

In a statement earlier in June, Whitworth said the company would take financial steps to soften the impact of falling sales on employees and independent distributors. He also said about the summer advertising strategy: "you can look forward to Bud Light reinforcing what you've always loved about our brand – that it's easy to drink and easy to enjoy."