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During Self-Isolation, More People Show Online Interest In Alcohol Than Healthcare

Tara Nurin
This article is more than 3 years old.

Do people quarantined by the coronavirus’ social distancing measures care more about drinking alcohol than they do about protecting their own health? If you rely exclusively on social media analytics, you might conclude the answer to be yes.

According to data released by the ListenFirst social analytics agency, engagement and growth around nearly 300 alcoholic beverage brands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were 326.51% higher this past March than the one prior. Engagement with health care brands, despite racking up the second-most amount of growth, behind alcohol, rose a mere 131.35%. In real life, numbers continue to show Americans — who for the most part can’t currently imbibe at a bar, restaurant or tasting room — purchasing far more alcohol for their homes than normal.

"Given the amount of normal activities that have been taken away from consumers during quarantine, people are especially thankful that they're still able to drink, which is a big contributor to why social engagement around alcohol brands went up,” explains ListenFirst Chief Marketing Officer Tracy David in a statement.

Personal health care item sales stats will be available later this month.

Beer and wine have emerged the winners on Twitter, with the number of tweets about beer rising 40% to more than 4 million in March 2020 and the number of wine tweets increasing 66% to 3 million.

Nielsen, which measures actual purchases, says the social media activity belies the category numbers in real life. “The magnitude of the year-over-year increase [in off-premises retail channels] was largest for spirits (+75%), followed by wine (+66%) and beer/flavored malt beverages/cider (+42%). Sales of beer (excluding FMB/ciders) are up 34%,” emails spokesperson Greg Doonan.

An alcohol.org survey of 3,000 Americans working from home this month discovered that 67% of WFH employees in Hawaii are drinking during work hours. Mississippi posted the lowest rate, at 13%, while the range across most states falls between 22% and 47%. The site reports that one-fifth of respondents have stockpiled alcohol for self-isolation, with beer standing out as the beverage of choice for work-time drinkers.

Data show alcohol stockpiling in the U.S. slowed at the end of March as compared to mid-March. The Cowen investment bank finds that total beverage alcohol sales grew 21.5% for the week ending March 28, versus the year prior, “marking a deceleration relative to the 52.9% growth in the week ending March 21,” writes a Cowen analyst in a research note dated April 9.

Back on social media, ListenFirst finds that alcohol brands did well to acknowledge the virus in their online marketing.

The firm notes, “Overall during the month of March 2020, 8 of the 10 top performing posts by Alcohol brands all address the coronavirus in one way or another.”

Case in point: Guinness generated the most successful reaction of the month with 82,918 responses by posting a touching video on Facebook about donating $500,000 to the community in honor of health care workers and orders to avoid crowds over St. Patrick’s Day. Budweiser ranked second and third for what ListenFirst calls “a Facebook pun showing the beautiful buds of spring outside a quarantined window” and a Facebook post asking for names of people “who are going above and beyond in doing the right thing.”

David writes, “Brands like Guinness, Tito's Handmade Vodka and Fireball are even further ingratiating themselves to the audience by posting about how they're donating their money or resources. At a time when there's so much depressing news going on in the world, people are even more receptive than usual to hearing about brands doing the right thing.”

Addressing a much-debated topic, the agency measured that negative tweets about Corona beer jumped from 7% in March 2019 to 19% in March 2020, “because people are wrongly associating Corona Beer with the Coronavirus.”

“This is why many people have said that under no circumstances they will consume Corona Beer right now,” the firm writes.

However, sales data show that Corona is moving just fine. In a survey of 2,500 American consumers, Cowen found this week that, “Corona continues to be extremely well positioned in beer as the #2 preferred brand in our survey. As well, Corona punches well above its weight when comparing the number of consumers who prefer the brand with its volume share in Nielsen.”

Nielsen assigns Corona a 5% share of the US beer market but 19% of Cowen’s respondents named it their favorite beer. CNN reports that its “sales accelerated in the first three weeks of March, the company said, with its beers growing 24% compared to a year ago. Corona Hard Seltzer, which launched in early March, is also off to a ‘strong start,’ according to a company earnings release.” 

Conclusion from the Corona/Coronavirus confusion: Yes, some people mistakenly associate Corona beer with Corona virus and report themselves as refusing to drink it. But the reality is this: those who don’t drink Corona don’t plan to start.

Those who do drink Corona will keep right on doing it, with one caveat. On Wednesday, The CEO of Constellation, which imports Corona into the U.S., said he would, in fact, limit production at its Corona brewery after stating last week he would completely defy orders by the Mexican government to temporarily shut down breweries. Constellation says it holds enough existing beer in its U.S. warehouses to last several months.

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