Author: Alex Thompson
The Cost of Excessive Alcohol Use Infographics Online Media Alcohol
The new Zenith report shows that alcohol industry giants are now readying massive spending on alcohol marketing in 2021. Alcohol advertising spending will still be 8% below the 2019 level by the end of 2021, at US$ 7.0bn. But over the next few years the alcohol industry’s expenses for alcohol advertising will reach the pre- pandemic peak. It is projected that in 2023 Big Alcohol will spend will US$ 7.7bn – slightly bigger than before COVID-19. With bars, pubs and restaurants closed, many consumers reduced their alcohol use.
Beer contains around 5% of pure alcohol per volume1 so that one liter of beer contains 0.05 liters of pure alcohol. While not exactly a “flavor,” packs of multiple flavors were the most popular, followed by iced tea-flavored hard seltzers and black cherry. IWSR indicates that “RTD growth has slowed due to a highly saturated hard seltzer segment.” Zenith reports that Kweichow Moutai trebled retail sales between 2014 and 2019 by consolidating its grip on the Chinese market, and is now the tenth-largest alcohol producer in the world, up from 24th in 2014. Baijiu is said to be the most consumed liquor in the world due to its dominance in China, but it is barely known elsewhere.
Alcohol use disorder vs. average alcohol intake
Global trends on alcohol abstinence show a mirror image of drinking prevalence data. This is shown in the charts as the share of adults who had not drunk in the prior year and those who have never drunk alcohol. Based on the 52 weeks ending November 5, 2022, off-premise hard cider sales decreased by 2.1%. While regional/local ciders, which account for 54% of the total hard cider sales, experienced positive growth (a 5.7% increase), national cider brands decreased in growth by 8.9%.
- Consumers are looking for a beverage made with natural ingredients and coloring for the overall beverage category.
- The net positive change for Sauvignon Blanc was 6% for women and 2% for men.
- As the map shows, the average per capita alcohol consumption varies widely globally.
Measuring the health impact by mortality alone fails to capture the impact that alcohol use disorders have on an individual’s well-being. The ‘disease burden’ – measured in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) – considers mortality and years lived with disability or health burden. The map shows DALYs per 100,000 people, which result from alcohol use disorders. The breakdown of alcohol use disorders by gender for any country can be viewed here; the majority of people with alcohol use disorders – around three-quarters – are male.
Alcohol consumption across the world today
This interactive chart shows the average share of household expenditure that is spent on alcohol. Both are measured in terms of pure alcohol/ethanol intake rather than the total quantity of the beverage. Wine contains around 12% pure alcohol per volume, so that one liter of wine contains 0.12 liters of pure alcohol.
The net positive change for Red Blends was 22% for those under 40 years of age and 36% for those aged 40 and older. The net positive change for Sauvignon Blanc was 6% for women and 2% for men. When segmented by age range, the net positive change for those under 40 years was 14% compared to 2% for those aged 40 and older. You may wonder, “How much is a premium-and-above bottle of wine or spirits?” The following table provides price bands as published by IWSR, Forbes.com, Winefolly.com, and IRI. The National Restaurant Association suggests that “uniquely spiced cocktail rims (Tajin, togarashi, etc.)” will be trending in 2022. Hasegawa, the following are examples of beer and food pairings based on the beer’s flavor profile.
But this tactic has become less effective as audiences have shifted more to digital media, particularly the young audiences most likely to visit a new bar and try out a new alcoholic drink. In 2021, alcohol producers will increase their advertising investments by eight percent to 42 million francs,” Brinkmann continued, as per Persönlich.com. While not exclusive to RTDs, according to Flavorman.com, 2022 beverage trends will be based on “the long-term effects of an ongoing pandemic…focus[ing] on celebrating life’s simple pleasures while striving for balance.”
In 2019, consumers aged 18 years and older drank, on average, 4.0 drinks in a seven-day period, but in 2021 that average was 3.6 drinks. This interactive map shows the annual average alcohol consumption of alcohol, expressed per person aged 15 years or older. To account for the differences in alcohol content of different alcoholic drinks (e.g., beer, wine, spirits), this is reported in liters of pure alcohol per year.
Global wine consumption
Other sources indicate that more “lesser-known” European lagers like Belgian lagers, Czech lagers, and German smoked lagers will become prevalent. All visualizations, data, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. It is possible to switch this data to any other country or region in the world. This shows the expenditure on alcohol in the United States, differentiated by where the alcohol has been purchased and consumed.
In most countries in this region, the majority of adults have never drunk alcohol. Hop water is a “carbonated beverage made with hops,” which “tastes a lot like beer, but contains zero alcohol, as well as zero calories, carbs, sugar or gluten.” From another report, compared to the first half of 2021, the volume of premium-and-above Prosecco grew 8% in the first half of 2022. Consumers are now much more aware of the available options for buying alcohol online, and alcohol brands now have distribution networks in place to supply them. Television’s declining reach increases the importance of out-of-home’s ubiquity even more – even taking into account the pandemic-induced reduction in foot and road traffic. Big Alcohol has mitigated this partially by focusing their spending on advertising around sporting events that attract young and well-off audiences, but here too viewing is shifting online.
Regarding differences based on demographics, Gallup provided insight into what beverage U.S. adults aged 18 and older drank “most often” in 2021. In the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and many European countries, alcohol is responsible for around a third of all traffic deaths. The total estimated number of deaths by country from 1990 to 2019 is found here.
Just 15 companies account for half the entire value of global alcohol sales, and one – Anheuser-Busch InBev – accounts for 15%. This means that the volume of alcohol retail will exceed pre-pandemic levels. The need to drive awareness and traffic to e-commerce channels meant the alcohol industry had to expand their online presence rapidly in 2020. The Zenith reports therefore predicts that the alcohol industry will reduce their expenditure on television advertising by 2.4% a year until 2023, compared to the 2019 baseline, as audiences continue to shrink.
The death rates are typically higher in Eastern Europe and lower in North Africa and the Middle East. The scatter plot compares the prevalence of alcohol use disorders in males versus that of females. The prevalence of alcohol dependence in men is typically higher than in women across all countries. This chart is shown for the global total but can be explored for any country or region using the “Change country or region” toggle. With the change country feature, it is possible to view the same data for other countries. Sweden, for example, increased the share of wine consumption and, therefore, reduced the share of spirits.
Between 2019 and 2022, while overall growth in the number of U.S. wineries grew 10% and the number of Californian wineries grew 7%, those in the Eastern U.S. (27 states east of the Mississippi River) grew 13%, accounting for 28% of the total wineries in the U.S. Of the states in the region, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia experienced the greatest increase in the number of wineries with growth rates of 14, 12, and 10%, respectively (Adams, 2022). The cost of excessive alcohol use in the U.S. was almost a quarter trillion dollars in 2010. Implementing effective community-based interventions can reduce excessive drinking and its costs.