The start of January opens the floodgates for campaigns revolving around various “New Year, New You” concepts, from marketers of fitness chains, dating apps, health food products and more. Beverage marketers for years have toyed with Dry January, the decade-old challenge that encourages consumers to abstain from alcohol in the first month of the year, in campaigns for brands both alcoholic and not.
This year, nonalcoholic beer maker Athletic Brewing is remaking Dry January in its own image with an “Athletic January” campaign that maintains “there’s nothing dry about it.” The effort is informed by research cited by the brand that found nearly two-thirds (64%) of consumers claim to be moderating their alcohol consumption, with more than a third (36%) of U.S. drinkers planning to reduce or eliminate alcohol in January.
“The consumer is already very inclined, especially younger consumers, Gen Z and millennials, to be considering participating in some way, shape or form,” said CMO Andrew Katz. “What we’re trying to do as Athletic is bring a little bit of fun and joy to what’s otherwise a dreary start to the year.”
“Athletic January” builds off last year’s “Ask for Athletic” campaign and is comprised of 15- and 30-second spots that feature bartenders, waiters and retailers presenting Athletic as the obvious choice in nonalcoholic beer. A multimillion-dollar media plan includes TV ads, out-of-home placements in key markets, streaming audio and podcasts ads, digital media and influencer endorsements — a full-funnel approach that helps the brand’s awareness efforts.
To help battle the stigma that still remains around nonalcoholic beer, Athletic puts a focus on “liquid to lips,” doing roughly a million samples annually to demonstrate how their variety of brews is much closer to traditional beers than the nonalcoholic brews of yore. The new campaign will include a sampling component at hundreds of activations, retail samplings and community events across North America and the U.K., plus an “Ask For Athletic Week” effort that doles out rebates at select locations to provide consumers a no-risk trial.
“We want to simplify life for consumers so that they’re not asking, ‘Do you have any great NA beer?,’ it’s just, ‘Ask for Athletic,’” Katz said. “With our increase in distribution and availability, it’s much more likely consumers will come across us, whether it’s at retail or on premise.”
Netflix and chill
Athletic’s new campaign looks to build on the brand’s rapid growth. Since its 2017 founding, it has grown to a top 20 U.S. brewery and now holds about a fifth of market share in the nonalcoholic beer category, per details provided by the company. That growth has been aided both by consumer behavior changes towards no-and-low-alcohol beverages and its culture-facing marketing efforts.
Athletic in November launched its second limited-edition collaboration with Netflix, the hazy Marine Odyssey IPA inspired by the streaming platform’s Barack Obama-narrated documentary series “Our Oceans.” The new beer was tied to the brand’s Two For The Trails environmental grant program that sees the company donate 2% of sales (up to $2 million in a year) to help provide better access to the outdoors.
The brewer-streamer partnership began in 2023 with the release of Geralt’s Gold, a helles lager inspired by Netflix’s fantasy series “The Witcher.”
“We did something decidedly less commercial this go around in an attempt to highlight some of what we do as a brand, altruistically,” Katz explained.
Influence and validation
Athletic has also worked to connect with influencers and creators, partnerships that are both inbound and outbound. The brand last year collaborated with country singer Walker Hayes and teamed with influencers the Holderness Family around a “Holly Hangover” skit timed to the holiday period. The brand’s approach has been an intentional move away from the type of influencers that seem endemic to nonalcoholic beer.
“We’ve really tried to diversify from just the athlete and wellness community now into music to lifestyle to cooking,” Katz explained. “We’re really trying to reach a broader audience than when the brand initially began.”
Since Athletic’s founding, its category has also seen the wide release of nonalcoholic beers from major competitors including Corona and Heineken; AB InBev is slated to release Michelob Ultra Zero this month. The brand sees the competition from the “big guys” as validation of its value proposition.
“The more people that they can help make aware of the category, the better it is for us… more people are coming down the aisle, seeing us on shelf and normalizing NA drinking as part of their repertoire,” Katz said. “We’re not really focused on the sober community — we’re very much a fan of you play it your way.”
