United Kingdom: Molson Coors to launch women’s beer by the middle of next year

Molson Coors is launching a beer aimed at women in the UK next year as it makes a fresh attempt to invigorate the lacklustre market, The Financial Times reported on November, 5.

Beer’s share of the UK drinks market has shrunk by a fifth in the past five years, and the company’s answer to it is a yet-to-be named beer that will be rolled out in the UK in the middle of next year and, if successful, further afield including the US. It will be accompanied by designer black and gold goblets, publicans who will be discouraged from serving sloppily overfilled glasses, and supported by advertising.

It is the brewer’s second attempt to target women, 60 per cent of whom never drink beer according to its research. The last effort was withdrawn at a late stage after it was deemed insufficient to engage a new swathe of drinkers.

This time, Molson Coors has carried out 18 months of research and spoken to more than 30,000 women at their homes, in bars and supermarkets.

Although barriers were largely thought to revolve around beer’s reputation as a bloating, fattening drink with a bitter taste, Molson Coor’s research showed that the key barrier for women was the advertising.

Other brewers chasing women drinkers include Carlsberg, which sells a fruity drink called Eve and SABMiller.

The latter’s Redd’s, “a premium alcohol fruit beverage made for the modern, confident woman” conversely proved popular with the (presumably modern, confident) man in Colombia.

Analysts remain sceptical. “Most of these products are what men think women should be drinking and fail miserably,” said Trevor Stirling, of Bernstein research.

However he added that younger men often had similar preferences for sweeter, fruitier drinks, pointing to the popularity of cider. “Actually even Strongbow is a way of men drinking something cold fruity and fizzy without losing credibility among their friends,” he said.

The UK beer market has been evaporating over the years: social and economic change have erased 40 per cent of its share of the alcoholic drinks market over the past four decades. Prices meantime have stagnated – there have been no retail price increases in the past 13 years.

06 November, 2010