First Drop: Dry Out, Dry January

As I write this, we’re almost through with Dry January and not since I sleep-trained my last kid have I ever been this ready for something to be over. It’s not because I’ve been enduring a stretch of sobriety made all the more painful by my inability to put booze between me and the current jackassery coming out of Washington – there’s no way I’d have gone into the new administration without some emergency brown liquor – but because I’m getting bored to death of the one-size-fits-all marketing approach that this annual fad has unleased.

If I get one more mocktail recipe, or receive one-more mid-January pitch for a story on the latest alcohol-free spirit based on a Dry January news peg, I’m going to use them to fire the still long enough to make Molotov Cocktails for the entire brand communications industry.

It’s time for a new approach, kids. Dry January might be catching on, but aside from wreaking havoc on the beverage alcohol side of the business, it’s doing more for the PR agencies of the world than it is the brands they represent. We need a year-long approach to selling the adult non-alcoholic (ANA category), not a pit stop.

The fact is, this monthly paean to preening self-affirmation has caused as much delusion around its ability to ignite a business as chugging a bottle of Night Train. With so much innovation coming out of the NA category, it’s weird that we have a product set whose core marketing initiative is based around one Dry month per year.

For as much momentum as the NA category has – and you’ll read plenty about its effects on everything from the mixer business to the spirits category to Gerry Khermouch’s own drinking habits in this issue – it can’t simply use Dry January as its Pumpkin Spice moment. These product types aren’t wired to have NA as a flavor-based LTO – they need to be enduring brands whose utility isn’t as a try-me-I’m-not-so-bad crutch to help you get through to February.

Of course, you’d think that the hype wouldn’t be necessary. The consumer intent is there – we all want to drink less, of course, but we need it to be an interesting experience, one that gets us somewhere in place of the booze, or that offers a flavor or textural experience that makes for a premium experience. Sell us on the food friendliness, the positive feelings, the killer design. Don’t just exert peer pressure around a fad.

So far, the idea that Americans might be drinking less hasn’t been enough to float an entire category. Last year, according to Nielsen, retail sales of NA products hit $823 million in the U.S. And that’s including the relative behemoth that is Athletic Brewing. By way of comparison: Last year, Ocean Spray sold more than $1 billion in cranberry juice cocktails alone. I’d argue that while a lot of that Ocean Spray was used for Cape Codders, an equal amount was mixed with club soda for an NA treat.

Yes, the Adult NA category is expected to hit about $5 billion by 2028, and yes, there are some wonderful stories like Athletic Brewing and Ritual. Those are brands which have long since left the idea of Dry January behind. A while back I wrote about why the NA beer occasion feels much more compelling than the spirits occasion, but if you really believe in the concept, why just look to January (or “Sobertober” as your backup plan). NA substitutes can’t just look to one month a year to build awareness, because they’re competing with hundreds of refreshment beverages whose reason for being isn’t just that they don’t have booze in them.

And there’s a much larger market out there in the American consumers who want to drink less over the course of the year – and those who aren’t going to drink at all.

According to a recent survey by NCS Consumer, 30% of Americans tried Dry January this year. That might seem like an impressive bump until you consider that the same survey revealed that about 25% of adult Americans don’t drink.

Now, you’d be justified in complaining that those numbers don’t tell the whole story. You’d probably be right. But at the same time, Dry January isn’t telling the whole story either – and if you can’t tell it the other 11 months of the year, chances are you’re going to need a lot more relief than what they’re selling in the Sober Bar down the block.