Experimentation and adventurous tastes.

If there’s one theme that’s influenced the alcohol sector over the past few years, it’s craft. The explosion of independent breweries and distilleries over the past decade laid out the principles of craft – small-batch, high quality, provenance and experimentation. The big brands have been quick to co-opt the design cues and language of these independent producers. In some cases, they’ve simply bought those who were challenging them. Encouragingly for consumers though, the major players also seem to have adopted the independents’ taste for experimentation, in product, packaging and marketing.

In this report we will examine how this increasing experimentation by brands, and the changing tastes of consumers, influenced the alcohol sector in 2016; and conclude what it may mean for marketers in 2017.