Aside from July being a far less popular month for dropping the sauce, interest has remained pretty stable over the years. Meanwhile Dry January has seen a steady rise since 2017, with 2021 its peak. This year levels were still relatively high, but they were down 24%.

Now, if Dry January was the big driver for non-alcoholic beverages in its month, we’d expect to see mentions of such drinks fall in 2022. But as we saw last week, that was not the case, and conversely, they peaked instead.

What this tells us is that more people are taking to non-alcoholic drinks without needing a challenge to push them in that direction. The increasing prevalence of zero alcohol drinks will have a big part to play, but we found another driver: more people giving up booze altogether.

Using another Consumer Research query, we found that since 2019, online interest in giving up alcohol has been growing. There was a particularly large increase going into 2020, which was sustained through the early months of the pandemic.

Levels were relatively stable through 2021, but then jumped significantly in January 2022 and remained up. For the H1 period, mentions are up 12.5% this year compared to 2021. Based on our data, that means an increasing amount of people are going sober entirely.

There will be a multitude of reasons behind this, from the influence of the pandemic to the cost of living, but in this bulletin we’re going to focus on the lifestyle side of things. Particularly the army of online sober influencers presenting the positivity and community of leaving alcohol behind, and the role brands are playing in all of this.

The sober side of life

While we know that the stereotype of influencers being excessive spenders and prone to conspicuous indulgence (not that this is a new idea) only applies to a small sample of the influencer world, some may be surprised that many influencers have built their following on celebrating sobriety.

Take David Wilson for example. By trade he’s a mindset coach who helps people tackle their dependency on alcohol, an occupation that is by no means rare or modern. But he has also built a huge following on Instagram under the handle @soberdave. There he’s racked up 58k followers thanks to videos, motivational images, and his own wise words.

And then there’s @sassysobermum. Unlike Dave, she’s no coach. She simply talks about her own experiences, while offering advice and support to her followers. Based on the engagement of her posts, she’s getting through to a lot of people.

What’s clear on these two accounts, and on those of other sober influencers, is that this is not about judgement or shame or moralising, even if the mirror they hold up may reveal harsh truths. These accounts are about encouraging confidence in sobriety, and often that you don’t need to shrink away from socialising to keep on the straight and narrow.

But they’re also about supporting and connecting with others going through the same thing, a way to feel less alone. In other words, this organic community acts like a quasi-support group.

People who are only just giving up booze are starting their own accounts as a way of not only helping themselves, but to inspire others too. Katya Rose, who works at Brandwatch, is one of those people. She created her @sober__raccoon handle after going sober back in January.

She told us that after giving up alcohol she “needed an outlet for all of the emotions swirling around inside [her] head.” Not drinking left her clear-headed and with more energy, but also a “desire to connect with other people about how [she] was feeling”. An Instagram account was the perfect way to do this.

We can see further evidence of this positive and connected community in the some of the more popular sober-related hashtags: #soberliving, #soberaf, #soberissexy. And if we need final proof that the sober community is alive and active, there’s a steady flow of memes posted every day too.

Here come the brands

As we said last week, lots of big brands realised there was money to be made in zero alcohol drinks, and set about manufacturing a dizzying array of choices. And with products come adverts.

Before we get into the specifics, it’s worth noting the effect of the above. The bigger presence and awareness of non-alcoholic drinks, the more it will encourage more conversation online. On top of that, it may help to reduce the stigma around choosing an alcohol-free beverage, especially if quality is a key marketing point.

That doesn’t mean it’s plain sailing though. How do you stand out in this field and what’s your angle? Different companies have gone for different tactics. Corona’s ad for their non-alcoholic beer is practically indistinguishable from a normal beer ad. Heineken on the other hand have been more to the point with their Now You Can campaign.

This will certainly help promote their products, and will likely land well with those taking a break, or who have always abstained for whatever reason.

But there’s one demographic that may be a little harder to convince. For those who have had problems with alcohol in the past, they may not be so willing to give money to companies also producing the booze that they tried so hard to give up. It’s little different to the ethical vegans who won’t get pulled into a KFC thanks to some plant-based options.

But luckily for them, there are plenty of newcomers on the scene, companies who were founded to sell non-alcoholic drinks specifically. Search “non-alcoholic drinks company” on Google and you’ll get a long list to scroll through.

Many of these companies seem like a match made in heaven for our sober influencers and their audiences. They’re unashamedly proud of their existence, and they’re producing interesting and exciting products, rather than zero alcohol versions of old favorites. Many seem to get the importance of community too.

Lucky Saint is a prime example, and one of the better known alcohol-free beers in the UK (it’s delicious too). Aside from all the usual marketing, they’ve created a Strava club for their customers to join, which now boasts over 4k members. Here they connect people through exercise, and encourage people to meet up for events. It couldn’t fit more perfectly with the supportive community nature of the online #soberlife adherents we looked at earlier.

Whether the trend for non-alcoholic drinks will continue, we can at least see progress has been made. And we’re sure the people who have left alcohol behind will be glad their taste buds are finally getting the respect they deserve.

A massive and hearty cheers to them all.

What should we cover next?

Is there a topic, trend, or industry you’d like us to feature in the Brandwatch Bulletin? We want to hear your ideas to make sure our readers are getting what they want. We may even ask to interview you if you’re involved with the topic.

Send any and all ideas to [email protected] and let’s talk.

Thanks for reading

If you liked what you saw today, sign up for the Brandwatch Bulletin now. We’ll be back next week. See you then.

Stay safe,

The Brandwatch Bulletin team