When it comes to young people in particular, drinking alcohol at this or any other time of year is increasingly out of fashion.
December marks a busy period for the alcoholic drinks industry as consumers indulge in greater consumption of such beverages across the many social gatherings that come with the festive season.
Indeed, for some manufacturers, keeping up with demand is a challenge in itself, as evidenced by Guinness announcing last week that it was limiting the amount of its famous brand that pubs could buy, after exceptional demand put its production capacity under pressure.
However, when it comes to young people in particular, drinking alcohol at this or any other time of year is increasingly out of fashion.
Our TGI consumer data reveals that 59% of Gen Z-ers in Britain (born 1997 onwards) over the age of 18 claim to not have consumed any alcoholic drinks in the previous 12 months, making them 49% more likely than the average adult to abstain from drinking.
This is a figure that has been rising steadily over recent years. Other generations have also seen rises in the proportion claiming not to drink, but none have a majority of their cohort as non-drinkers. For example, 49% of Millennials claim not to drink, as do 35% of Gen X and 25% of Baby Boomers.
Non-drinking driven by men
Young men in particular are not drinking, with TGI showing that 65% of male Gen Z-ers claim not to drink, compared to 53% of women in the same generation.
Gen Z men who do not drink are more likely to hold certain specific attitudes compared to other Gen Z-ers. For example, they take their financial affairs very seriously and pay careful attention to their diet and health.
TGI reveals they are also less likely to be highly extrovert, with the OCEAN classification on TGI revealing that they are 33% less likely than the average Gen Z to rank high for extraversion. This is reflected in them being less likely to attend big cultural and social gatherings compared to other Gen Z-ers.
For example, they are 24% less likely to claim to have been to a major music festival like Glastonbury, Reading or Leeds and 44% less likely to have visited either Wembley Stadium, Wembley Arena or the O2.
Drinkers rather than non-drinkers most likely to consume alcoholic alternatives
You might expect non-drinking Gen Z-ers to be more likely than their drinker counterparts to claim consumption of non-alcoholic alternatives to popular alcoholic drinks, but this is not the case.
Indeed, when it comes to non-alcoholic spirits, wines and premium soft drinks, 11% of alcohol-drinking Gen Z-ers consume these, compared to only 4% of non-drinkers, with similar differences in figures for consumption of non-alcoholic beer and cider.
Targeting both the drinkers and non-drinkers in Gen Z requires a careful approach, as in some respects the advertising and media consumption biases of these two audiences are similar, but in other respects very different.
