“Non-alcohol” vs “Fine-alcohol” Any differences in their customer bases? An examination based on search data

“Non-al” market rises before “Fine-al”. They have successfully secured a large market space in convenience stores and supermarkets. There are also such products as “calorie free”, “purine free”, “Zero carbs”, emphasizing on the health function of the drinks. It was a hot topic recently that Coca-Cola Japan launched a non-al lemon sour tasted drink “Yowanai lemon do” from their favorite lemon sour “Yowanaido” series on February 21, 2022.

According to the study by Suntory, non-al beverage market in 2020 grew 103% when compared with the previous year, which reached the largest scale ever.

It could be said that the beer-tasting beverages “BEERY” (Asahi Breweries)played a important role in the “Fine-al” trends. This company promoted the concept of “smart drinking (smadri)”that the drinker can decide freely on alcohol drinks or non-alcohol drinks according to his/her health conditions, mood, occasion, etc. . Because of this hit, the sales figures of the company increased approx. 20% when compared with the first half of the same year. （*1）

Alcohol percentage of “BEERY” is merely 0.5%, which is quite below when compared with the average of the 5% of general beers Yet, it is still alcoholic, not “non-al”. This fine balance seems to be attracting to a lot of consumers.

After all, what is the difference between “Non-al” and “Fine-al”? Who are the target consumers? Now, let’s take a closer look using the behavior log analyzing tool “Dockpit”.

First, we compiled the data on search users of “Non-alcohol/Non-al” and “Fine-alcohol/ Fine-al.”

As shown in the the below chart, the number of search users for “non-al” is higher than the number of search users for “Fine-al” with some tiny fluctuation, exceeding 80,000 monthly at the highest level. Here, we witness that “non-al” rose as sales of alcohol was restricted at pubs and restaurants due COVID-19.

On the other hand, the progress of “Fine-al” has slowed down from the peak in September 2021, even though the number of search users of “Fine-al” has increased with the launch of “BEERY.”

Next, let’s compare the characteristics of search users for “Non-alcohol/Non-al” and “Fine-alcohol/ Fine-al.”

As shown in the chart on the next page, female drinkers tend to opt for “Non-al” while male drinkers prefer “Fine-al”. As for ages, the ratio of 30s is the highest in “Non-al” and it reaches the peak in 40s for “Fine-al.”

Next, let’s take a look of the characteristics chart of search users of “non-al”.
The chart below shows the keywords searched simultaneously with “non-al”. The vertical axis stands for age and the horizontal axis stands for gender.

Now, let’s move on to the characteristics chart of search users for “Fine-al”.
The chart below shows the keywords searched simultaneously with “Fine-al”. The vertical axis stands for ages and the horizontal axis stands for gender.

Although the number of users is lower when compared with “non-al”, male consumers are the majority who make crossing searches, like “Asahi” and “beer”. They also had concerns and thus searched about drunk driving.

Now, let’s take a look of the webpages browsed after consumers searched “Non-al” and “Fine-al”.
(Iirrelevant pages such as “non-alcohol wipes”, are excluded.)

It seems that many browsed the Wikipedia page of their favorite beverage and some related rankings searching “non-al”. The favorite ranking 7 of non-alcohol shochu soda won the 3rd place.

We can see that users go to the homepage of “BEERY” after searching “Fine-al”.

We have analyzed the popularity of “Non-al” and “Fine-al” from the webpage browsing behaviors of keyword search users.

We examined a certain number of users, with some fluctuations, as the number of search users exceeded 80,000 monthly at its highest.
The demand for “non-al” rose as sales of alcohol was restricted at pubs and restaurants due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Non-al beverage market in 2020 grew by 103% when compared with the previous year.
”Yowanai lemon do” was launched on February 21, 2022; it also contributed to the rise of its popularity.

On the other hand, “Fine-al” progress has slowed down from the peak in September 2021, even though the number of search users of “Fine-al” has increased since “BEERY” was launched, as it didn’t gain brand recognition yet as much as “non-al” did.
As for the site browsed after searching, the page of “BEERY” ranked high. There are high hopes in the further growth of the product.

We have also compared the characteristics of search users for “Non-alcohol/Non-al” and “Fine-alcohol/ Fine-al.” The result is that more female users go for “non-al” and more male go for “Fine-al”. As for ages, ratio of 30s for “non-al” and 40s for “Fine-al” are the highest.

We saw that especially young female searched “non-al” crossing with the various kinds of beverage and shops simultaneously. It is imagined that “non-al” popularity is high for this group.

We can possibly conclude that the popularity of non-al and fine-al relates to both the rich lineup that targeted at young female and the fact that they could choose the way to enjoy liquors “without getting drunk” and “still be able to drive after drinking”.

The data in this investigation is from “Dockpit”, an analysis tool with online behavior log data and user demographic information under the permission of panelists in Japan presented by VALUES, Inc.

※The numbers of users are estimated by the data in the monitor and the internet population in Japan.