The new trend of beverage consumption: three-dimensional taste, health upgrade, emotional resonance

Bubble juice, bubble milk, bubble tea and other bubble drinks appear. Sugar-free tea drinks are popular in the health trend, and the post-95 generation is the beverage consumer group with the greatest growth potential. Recently, the First Financial Business Data Center (CBNData) and Tmall released the "2021 Beverage Consumption Trend Insight" report, which provides insight into the development of the current beverage market, the significant characteristics of new consumers, and the latest three trends in beverage consumption.

Consumers seek taste and health

Beverage market size will exceed trillion

In the past three years, the consumption scale of the beverage industry has gradually expanded, and is expected to exceed 1.3 trillion in 2024, and the consumption growth rate has reached four times that of the overall beverage and food industry. The influx of online consumers is the main driver. According to the report, the number and consumption frequency of consumers in the beverage industry on Tmall platform in 2021 are on the rise, driving the growth of overall consumption.

On the other hand, the entry of many new brands and the replacement of old brands have also made the beverage market increasingly competitive and gradually promoted market innovation. In particular, the number of domestic brands has increased in the past two years, occupying more than 70% of the seats.

When it comes to drinking, consumers are no longer satisfied with simply quenching their thirst, but pursuing better taste bud experience and higher level health needs. Hot taste drinks such as sparkling water, tea drinks and other categories of "just red", after consumers increasingly pay more attention to the health of drinks, plant protein drinks and pure fruit and vegetable juices also occupy a place in the market.

Beverage consumption covers more scenarios

The post-1995 generation has become a new driving force for growth

In recent years, with the extension of the beverage consumption scene, family stockpiling, outdoor ready-to-drink, banquet sharing, sports and fitness have become the new scene of consumer beverage demand, and the new demand has driven the continuous expansion of the online beverage market, the number of consumers has been increasing, and gradually penetrated the big food industry.

From the perspective of gender consumption, women have become the core group of beverage market with a high proportion and high growth rate; From the perspective of age groups, the young generation after 95 is the main incremental population driving the growth of the beverage market. In this group of people, the downward trend of consumption is obvious, mainly in the third and fourth lines and below the level of urban consumption and higher growth rate.

Young consumers have outstanding performance in the re-purchase rate and the frequency of re-purchase, and the growth rate of the number of high-frequency re-purchase after 95 is far ahead, and the high-frequency consumption mentality has gradually become prominent.

The consumption growth rate of post-90s consumers on all kinds of drinks is higher than that of the overall population, and the younger generation is especially fond of sparkling water. After the consumer mind is further mature and the products are more differentiated, young people are also more willing to put pure fruit and vegetable juice drinks and functional drinks in the bag.

Gen Z prefers stacked textures

New white-collar workers love sugar-free drinks

The report also pointed out that the beverage market has gradually shown three new consumption trends of "three-dimensional taste, health upgrading and emotional resonance".

From the perspective of taste, in recent years, the consumption of sparkling water has gradually heated up, and new flavors based on various fruit flavors continue to emerge. At the same time, a variety of innovative categories of sparkling water have also emerged, and bubble juice, bubble milk, and bubble tea have been favored by consumers and are growing rapidly.

Young generation Z rush to try the new first line, like the superposition of the taste of bubble milk, bubble tea and bubble juice, etc., do not give up the taste of "happy water", more mature consumers prefer more healthy and clear Paris water, soda water and so on. The "season limit" and "season" have also become a new formula for the product circle, and the season limit products can not only attract consumers to pay attention to purchase, but also help the brand to create explosive single products.

In terms of health, with the enhancement of consumers' health awareness, "natural no addition" has become the main reason for consumers to buy health drinks. Pure tea, NFC juice, real juice tea, favored by consumers, real juice tea containing natural real juice as an innovative category, the integration of real juice and real tea, the growth is amazing. In addition to sports, fitness and other professional scenes, electrolyte drinks under energy drinks are also welcomed by consumers in many outdoor and non-sports scenes.

In addition, the beverage should also be able to "lift" will play, emotional marketing trend highlights. In the face of consumers' high demand for "fun" attributes, IP co-branding and star endorsement have become a big tool for breaking the interest circle.

The consumption trend of IP co-branded drinks with creative and emotional links has increased by 8 times in the past three years, and the IP of cartoon animation types such as Disney and Pokemon Dream, the IP of game e-sports types such as King of Glory and League of Legends, and the IP of sports events such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games have been listed.

With the popularity of the fan economy, the growth rate of beverage products endorsed by stars is significantly higher than the overall beverage market. From the perspective of consumer groups, the proportion of generation Z in the consumption of star endorsement products is prominent, and the products endorsed by popular stars such as The Times Youth Group, CAI Xukun, Wang Jia Er and idol are particularly popular among this group.