November 24th, 2023, Bhavika Bansal
From the cozy nooks of local watering holes to the vibrant shelves of retail stores, the journey of a consumer's discovery of a new alcoholic beverage is a complex interplay of cultural influences, personal preferences, and evolving trends. Given the ever-expanding labyrinth of options available to consumers, understanding how they stumble upon these options and then embrace new drinking experiences is a crucial area of exploration for brands and marketers.
A new YouGov survey across 16 international markets seeks to unveil the dynamic pathways by which consumers typically discover new alcoholic beverages. Among the consumers we polled globally, in-store promotions (17%) are the most popular means of discovery for such products, followed by word-of-mouth recommendations (16%).
Less than a tenth of all the consumers we polled say they typically discover new alcoholic beverages through social media, online ads and online reviews (6%, 6% and 5% respectively). Interestingly, more than a quarter of consumers say that they do not use any of the given channels (28%), possibly, in part, due to lack of visibility of such products in local stores or markets, limited exposure to advertising and limited availability.
A closer at the data for five key markets – Great Britain, Sweden, the US, Mexico, and India – reveals some more interesting nuances.
More than one out of five Britons say they typically discover new alcoholic beverages by way of in-store promotions (22%) - compared to a tenth of respondents in Sweden (10%), the US (11%) and India (11%).
Similarly, a fifth of Britons and Swedes indicate that word-of-mouth recommendations help them discover new alcoholic beverages (21% and 20%), a sentiment shared by 15% of Americans, 18% of Mexicans and 16% of Indians.
Interestingly, while 19% of consumers in Mexico say they discover such products through television advertisements, this proportion drops significantly across other markets (GB, 8%; Sweden, 4%; India, 7%), perhaps as result of greater restrictions placed on advertising alcoholic beverages on television, especially in India and Sweden.
A look at the results by age demographics reveals that more than three times as many 18-to-34-year-olds as consumers aged 55 and above typically discover new alcoholic beverages through social media (11% vs. 3%).
While television advertisements are almost equally popular among all age groups, consumers aged 35-54 and 55+ are substantially more likely to rely on in-store promotions than the 18-to-34-year-olds (19%, 18%, and 14% respectively).
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 512 and 2,000 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in August 2023 Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.