Revisiting Canned Cocktails just in time for Summer

Edited by Christian Thompson

A few months ago, we analyzed upcoming alcohol trends for this summer. We concluded that the “Canned Cocktails” trend is poised for a big summer. Let's see how the prediction is playing out.

Canned Cocktails have taken over summer barbecues and pool parties for the past two summers, and our forecast still shows that the trend is going to peak again this summer. Over the past two years, the impact score for “Canned Cocktails” has increased by 159%. The future estimate has the impact score peaking this summer. This trend seems to experience seasonality as the impact score reaches its highest point in the summer. The question remains: What has been driving this trend?

Convenience has played a significant role in the growth of premixed can drinks. The impact score for “Ready To Drink” has increased by 109% over the past year. This signal is subject to seasonality, just as “Canned Cocktails.” Consumers appreciate the easy option of ready-made drinks, especially during the summer months. Another reason for the growth behind canned cocktails is consumers want a stronger beverage than a hard seltzer. The wide product variety of RTD (ready-to-drink) cocktails has also contributed to its growing popularity. In addition, canned cocktails have garnered significant mindshare of the younger generation through marketing campaigns. Cutwater and High Noon are two market leaders that have leveraged large product variety and marketing to spur their growth.

Over the past six months, the signals for “Cutwater Drinks” and " High Noon Drinks” have increased by 172% and 85%. The comparison above illustrates that consumer energy surrounding Cutwater is outpacing that of High Noon. The brands are poised for continued growth in the summer months, and our platform has High Noon spiking exponentially.

Cutwater has used its extensive product offering to gain traction in the RTD market, offering canned Mojitos, Mai Tais, and more. Cutwater recently announced new editions to their product offering for Summer 2022, and the most notable addition is the Ranch Water canned cocktail. Ranch Water is a tequila-based mixed drink gaining popularity over the past two summers. During this period, the impact score for “Ranch Water” has increased by 322% and is forecasted to peak this summer. It seems that Cutwater made the correct addition to their product line for this summer.

High Noon has gained popularity through marketing campaigns targeted toward millennials and gen z. This billboard shows their strategy as the brand appeals to young working professionals. They have also used partnerships to grow brand awareness. High Noon struck a deal with Barstool Sports to release two new flavors, Lime and Peach. The company leveraged Barstool’s massive following to penetrate the 21-30-year-old demographic further. High Noon’s growth strategy is working as they have become one of the most popular canned cocktails brands.

We used our platform to compare trending canned cocktails, and to no surprise, the Ranch Water canned cocktail is leading the group. Vodka Soda and Mai Tai canned cocktails followed by Mojito and Gin & Tonic premixed cocktails. All of these RTD cocktails have been growing in popularity and based on this, we believe that canned cocktails are here to stay and will be everywhere this summer.

Thank you for reading this week’s Inflection Point. We hope you enjoyed our analysis on canned cocktails and what is driving the consumer energy around this trend. As always, have a great weekend.

Cheers!

About NWO.ai
NWO.ai's predictive platform enables leading Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to anticipate and track global cultural shifts by aggregating, analyzing, and producing actionable reports on human-generated data. We are leveraging petabytes of external, noisy, and unstructured data from various sources –including search, social media, blogs, news, patent databases, and SEC filings and we are continuously adding more sources. Our mission is to answer the what, when, and most importantly, 'why' behind a consumer trend and enable our customers to detect these shifts as early as possible.

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