- Big beer brands are shifting more ad spend then ever to their no-alcohol brands.
- Around 41% of US consumers say they want to drink less alcohol in 2024, a survey shows.
- Beer brands are responding with promotions, sports sponsorships, and new product development.
With Dry January over for another year, many drinkers will have returned to their old tipples. But US brewing giants are spending more money than ever to market their low and no-alcohol beers all year round, reflecting the category's rapid rise as traditional lagers and ales begin to lose their fizz.
Some 38.8% of the $1.3 billion the US beer category spent on advertising last year was devoted to light and low-alcohol beer and ale, up from 31.5% in 2022, and 28.3% in 2021, according to Vivvix, a MediaRadar company. (The 2023 figure includes some preliminary data for December.)
Boston brewery Samuel Adams is one of the many companies contributing to this trend.
It just wrapped up its Dry January activity, when it invited fathers-to-be to enter an Instagram contest to give up alcohol in solidarity with their pregnant partner, for a chance to win a 40-week supply of its non-alcoholic IPA, Just the Haze.
Samuel Adams has much bigger plans for its alcohol-free brews later this year. The company is about to start filming a national TV commercial dedicated to Just the Haze and will build awareness of the drink online by using a network of influencers.
It's a big shift from just a few years ago, when non-alcoholic drinks were just a component of Samuel Adams's wider portfolio campaigns.
This year, it will devote around 20% of its marketing budget to its low and no alcohol products, up from about 13% in 2023, according to its head of brand Lauren Price. It's shifting dollars away from its flagship brand, Boston Lager, to the non-alcoholic category, she added.
"We're putting the dollars behind where the growth is," Price said. "One year ago I would have told you that everything was Dry January, Sober October, times when drinkers were abstaining from alcohol — and that's no longer the case."
Other alcohol brands are also making marketing moves in response to new consumption trends. While total North American beer sales were down 12% over the past three years as people seek healthier options, according to the market research firm Circana, non-alcoholic beer has flown off the shelves during that same time period, growing 49%.
It's not just that more consumers are opting for sobriety — although many, especially Gen Z, are doing just that. Alcohol drinkers are opting for non-alcoholic beers on more occasions, such as at lunchtime or as a "chaser" between alcoholic drinks on a night out, experts said. It helps that brewers have improved the dealcoholization process over the years so that alohol-free beers retain their flavors.
"A number of years ago as a company, we strategically decided to move from just beer to 'total beverage' and with that, we did make a decision to ensure we are putting the right resources and investments in those types of segments," said Sofia Colucci, Molson Coors CMO for North America. Molson Coors' low and no-alcohol beer portfolio includes Peroni 0.0, Blue Moon Non-Alc, Miller 64, and the ZOA energy drink.
Better margins, newer opportunities
While non-alcoholic beers still only represent a small proportion of the total amount of beer sold, brewers can sell non-alcoholic beers at a higher margin, because they are often priced at a premium and avoid excise duty.
Non-alcoholic beer opens up new opportunities for sports marketing, with more logical links to be made with drinking in moderation or not at all. Take Formula 1, where Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0% just inked a sponsorship deal with Team Ferrari and Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen is the face of Heineken 0.0 beer, the US market leader.
Corona Cero 0% beer is set to be the lead brand for Anheuser-Busch InBev's sponsorship of the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer. The deal, announced earlier this year and which makes AB InBev a Worldwide Olympic Partner through to Los Angeles in 2028, marks the first time a beer brand has sponsored the Games.
"This is an opportunity to strengthen beer as a category and as the category of moderation," said AB InBev CMO Marcel Marcondes.
Forty-one percent of Americans say they plan to drink less alcohol in 2024, up from 34% the prior year, according to a survey commissioned in December by the marketing company NCSolutions. The company even found that the most popular drink people planned to consume on New Year's Eve in the US in 2022 was soda rather than an alcoholic fizz.
"There seems to be a cultural zeitgeist element gathering steam and reinforcing itself," said Alan Miles, NCSolutions CEO. "Not drinking and the non-alcoholic option is cool."