Social acceptance of moderation is a “universal barrier” to non-alcoholic beer growth in some markets, according to the global head of innovation at Diageo-owned stout brand Guinness, Colin Donnelly.
“I see social acceptance of moderation is a universal barrier. Although I think the extent to which it impacts acceptance of moderation can vary by market,” Donnelly told Just Drinks.
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“We definitely have markets where it is absolutely the number one barrier, and [that’s] something that we need to change.”
The innovation chief at Guinness declined to single out any specific markets where this proved to be more of a particular hurdle.
Speaking at the International Beer Strategies Conference in Prague, Czechia, this week, Donnelly said Guinness was looking to tackle “the moderation paradox”, whereby “consumers want to moderate, but sometimes they can feel social pressure not to stand out from the crowd.”
He added: “The majority are moderators, but there’s a lack of awareness that others are moderating, which impacts social acceptance. So, quite simply, the job that we need to do is to create greater social acceptance of moderation by elevating non-alc to a world of joyful, operational socialising.”
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By GlobalDataConnelly’s comments chime with the results of a global study published earlier this year by Ipsos, the University of Oxford and Heineken. The analysis showed four in five consumers thought it was more acceptable to buy no- and low-alcohol than five years ago, but that peer pressure was holding back sales.
The study of over 11,800 people across UK, US, Spain, Japan and Brazil found more than 80% of those surveyed thought drinking no-and-low drinks was more acceptable than five years ago. Over two-thirds reported they had tried no-and-low products.
At the event hosted by Just Drinks’ sister events arm Arena International, Connelly also stressed there was a “need to stop portraying non-alc as a solution for the times when drinking is not an option.”
“Instead, what we need to do, and what we’re trying to do at Guinness 0.0 is to establish non-alc as a desirable, aspirational choice in its own right,” he said.
The business has been working to shift the status quo around consumer perceptions of moderation through brand activations in the on-trade in Ireland as well as sports partnerships, including Guinness 0.0’s partnership with the Premier League football and Six Nations rugby championships.
In Ireland and the UK, the business has also recently scaled up its launch of the non-alc brand extension on draught. Diageo began a longer-term test sale of its non-alcoholic Guinness on tap in the UK on-premise in September last year.
The following month, the Tanqueray gin maker announced it was plugging in a new €30m (then $32.5m) investment into production of the non-alcoholic brand in Ireland to double production capacity at the St James’s Gate brewery in Dublin.
