Fever-Tree’s a hit with the drink-from-home consumer during lockdown

This month Fever-Tree, a producer of high quality drink mixers, announced that they are expecting a very gradual recovery as consumers return to restaurants and pubs now that they are reopening following coronavirus.

Fever-Tree has managed to limit the hit to its sales as consumers shifted to at-home drinking, helped by the brand’s first national TV advert targeting consumers at home. Chief executive Tim Warrillow said: “People’s interest and excitement about mixing drinks at home has really taken hold over the lockdown period, attracting more households to the Fever-Tree brand than ever before.”

YouGov data from earlier in the year supports this, showing that three quarters of those that drink alcohol were drinking the same or more since lockdown began. Similarly, purchase consideration for alcoholic beverages remained the same at the start of 2020 as it had been at the start of 2019.

New YouGov BrandIndex data shows that Consideration scores for Fever-Tree (whether someone would consider purchasing from the brand in future) enjoyed two periods of significant growth since the start of lockdown. Standing initially at 17.7, over March and April, the brand’s score grew 4.3 points to 22.0, before increasing again to its peak of 24.8 on 22^nd June. Since then, pubs have reopened and the government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme has meant that Consideration has declined – although not to before lockdown levels.

BrandIndex data also shows the impact of Fever-Tree’s first national TV advert in May, which highlighted the product’s natural ingredients and flavour. Ad Awareness scores (whether someone has seen or heard an advert by the company in the past two weeks) for the brand increased from 2.8 to 17.5 after the advert’s release, with Attention scores (whether someone has heard anything about a brand, positive or negative, in the past two weeks) similarly increasing 6.3 points from the beginning of May.

There have been many winners and losers throughout lockdown, however brands like Fever-Tree which can appeal to the many new and emerging types of consumer will prevail in the new normal.

Image: Fever-Tree

This article previously appeared in City A.M.