About the market:

The market for flavoured alcoholic beverages (FABs) has been established for over a decade now. During the early years of the 2000s, it experienced rapid growth, fuelled by strong brands, high advertising spends and consumer demands for sweet, easy-to-drink alcohol. This went hand in hand with a concern for the effect that the category was having on underage and binge drinkers. The rapid growth brought the category to the attention of the government, who saw an opportunity for increased tax revenue through creating a new tax bracket with a higher duty rate. This, plus changing consumer demands, sent the category into decline at the end of 2003.

By the end of 2005, there are indications that the decline is slowing, and the market consolidating. Dominated by Diageo, Beverage Brands and, to a decreasing degree, Bacardi-Martini, the category is still witnessing innovation and new product development, albeit with far higher costs of entry than in the early days. The market today has very different barriers, with increasingly strict advertising regulation, a new wave of social responsibility and an increasingly competitive retail environment. This makes successful product launches more and more difficult to achieve.

About Mintel’s research:

Mintel’s new market intelligence report provides the user with a fresh insight into a market showing signs of recovery after a difficult couple of years.

Compiling the most sought-after trend and sales data and most authoritative, independent market analysis, it offers you a vital way of fully understanding the FABs market. It also offers you unique findings from exclusive consumer research, invaluable information that will help you tailor your business to real consumer demand. Mintel’s research report has been designed to help you:

Identify the market’s size, segmentation and key trends, along with the driving forces that serve to drive or curtail growth

Develop the next big idea in the FAB market before your competitors

Gain a firm understanding of the market’s supply structure, major brands and advertising trends

Get to grips with the most effective distribution channels

Measure market forecasts and build realistic business models

Discover which consumers are the heaviest drinkers of FABs and investigate their attitudes towards these drinks

Analyse purchasing preferences across all demographics, enabling you to identify new target audiences and create focussed marketing messages that appeal

Find out how innovation, through the fusion of other categories to create new hybrid products, and growth through the strengthening of the main FAB brands, might be the key to driving the market forward.

Intriguing findings include:

A quarter feel that FABs are expensive, perhaps an effect of the increase in duty, and a fifth feel that it is easy to drink far too much.

A total of 16% believe that FABs are a woman’s drink. Of these, slightly more are men, they tend to be under-45s but particularly under-25s. They are more likely to be pre-/no family and are heavy TV viewers (ie watch five or more hours of TV a day).