Fast-growing non-alcoholic beer maker Athletic Brewing Company will make its largest investment ever to support its “Give Dry a Try” campaign and boost the company during “Dry January.”
Athletic co-founder Bill Shufelt told Brewbound that the company will make a seven-figure media investment as part of the “multifaceted” national campaign, which will include television advertisements during the NFL Playoffs and the Cotton Bowl, as well as ad buys on digital, connected, streaming shows, out of home billboards, podcast sponsorships and radio ads.
“Our goal isn’t to have great customers for January. Our goal is to have them try our beer in January and stay with us the full year,” he said. “Most of the people who try us in January stick with us for the full year.”
Year-to-date through November 27, dollar sales of non-alcoholic beer in off-premise retailers were up +14.5%, while case sales were up +6.4% compared to the same period in 2021. The segment’s share of beer category sales increased 0.07%, to 0.61%.
With the Dry January month of abstinence on the horizon, Shufelt is eyeing an opportunity for greater awareness. In 2022, 62% of drinkers age 21-34 took breaks from alcohol, up from 50% in 2021, according to a Harris Poll survey for the Beer Institute. Additionally, Generation Z consumers are drinking less, according to NielsenIQ data.
“Most of those consumers do just cut back, and we want to give them away to Give Dry a Try and really enjoy that experience of the month,” he said.
Athletic’s commercials during the January 2 Cotton Bowl, featuring the University of Southern California (USC) against Tulane, are relevant given the company’s name, image and likeness (NIL) deal with USC star quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams. Another Athletic NIL athlete, quarterback CJ Stroud, will represent the brand during the College Football Playoff when Ohio State meets Georgia.
Next month, Athletic will also sponsor the Q&A segment of Barstool Sports’ Token CEO podcast, with a reach of more than 3.6 million people, Shufelt said.
Athletic also rolled out a partnership with Whoop for January aimed at engaging consumers “hyper-focused on performance, wellness and a modern lifestyle.” Throughout January, some of Athletic’s celebrity investors, ambassadors and community members will join an effort to explore the effects of alcohol on sleep, recovery, and fitness.
For Shufelt, those investments are about meeting consumers where they are and getting them to “incorporate Athletic into their daily, weekly lives,” not for just a single month.
In 2023, Athletic plans to share 1 million cans of beer through samplings and activations, communications manager Chris Furnari shared (Editor’s note: Furnari previously worked at Brewbound). In 2022, the company took part in more than 2,500 activations, from Spartan and Ironman races, to local 5Ks, to retail sampling and outdoor music events.
Athletic’s 2023 campaign follows the completion of its 50-state footprint in September, and several major retailers overhauling their non-alcoholic beer sets in the fall, with more following suit in the spring.
“It’s really exciting to boost that presence with better awareness nationally,” Shufelt said. “In our significantly expanded state footprint, we’re seeing retailers like Walmart, Target, Costco, Publix really start to lean into the evolved non-alcoholic category and make it a priority, where it’s already so strong in the natural channel.”
With none of Athletic’s offerings — including Run Wild IPA and Upside Dawn golden ale — holding more than 20% national ACV (all commodity volume), Shufelt sees an opportunity to build out the company’s core brands.
“It’s definitely too early to be making any big changes to the lineup because it’s just under distributed, but has very high velocity where it is distributed,” he added.
Shufelt added that Cerveza Athletica went national at the request of several retailers, while Athletic Lite will get more distribution with the spring 2023 reset.
In 2021, Athletic brewing crossed the 100,000-barrel mark and was on the edge of becoming a top 25 craft brewery by volume, according to the Brewers Association. Shufelt previously told Brewbound that Athletes had hurtled its 2021 performance by August 2022.
Athletic received a $50 million investment from Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) in November as part of its Series D funding round, whcih raised a total of $75 million. The publicly-traded CPG giant’s investment granted it a minority equity stake in the business and a seat on Athletic’s board of directors.