A survey conducted by crowd sourced shopper insight agency, Snooper, has revealed that a majority of consumers will be tuning in to watch next week’s footy finals at home with friends, indicating a great opportunity for liquor retailers.
Of those surveyed, 81 per cent were planning on watching the finals at either their own or someone else’s home, and of those 60 per cent would be watching the game with their partner.
Only 14 per cent planned to watch the game in a bar or pub, and of those, the vast majority were single.
Two-thirds of those watching the finals at home planned to do so in groups of under 10 people, leaving a third hosting reasonably sized entertaining events and barbecues.
Snooper CEO, Laurie Wespes, says that liquor retailers have a great opportunity to capitalise on the footy finals fever.
“Bottle shops have the opportunity to create footy finals party zones,” said Wespes.
“Given that people hosting their own parties place snacks slightly higher in importance than alcohol, perhaps because guests BYO, at the very least this indicates bottle shops have an opportunity to create beverage and snack bundled offers, and preferably entire occasion-based solutions across multiple beverage categories including soft drinks.”
Reinforcing the need for cross category promotion of the footy finals occasion, while beer was the alcoholic game-watching drink of choice for 88 per cent of males and 59 per cent of females, 38 per cent still planned to buy RTDs (likely due to their convenient format when people want to concentrate on watching the game), and the same percentage for wine, including sparkling.
Thirty-seven per cent planned to buy spirits, and 30 per cent cider – a much higher percentage than cider’s four per cent share of off-premise sales would otherwise indicate, and therefore an opportunity for cider brands to promote themselves as a beer and RTD alternative at footy and entertaining times.
Footy finals hosts were also looking for gourmet alternatives, according to Wespes.
“We had quite a few people saying that footy finals were an opportunity to up the BBQ ante and provide something creative and gourmet,” she said.
“This says to us here at Snooper that retailers have an opportunity to promote craft beers as part of creating a more upmarket footy finals party zone in their stores.”