Social Lubricants on Social Media; #Research
Source: The Cowen Insight
June 23, 2016
With 500 mm active monthly users, social lubricants (drinkables, and inhalables) are popular on Instagram. Beer engagement is the highest, closely followed by marijuana and vaping (not mutually exclusive). Positive reads to top picks STZ and MNST.
Social Lubricants Dominate on Instagram.
Relative to categories like soda, alcoholic drinkables (beer, wine and spirits) and inhalables (marijuana and vapor) are exceedingly popular, and generate very high levels of category engagement (as measured by hashtag use). Indeed, while the top 5 beer-related hashtags had 47 mm posts, this was followed by marijuana-related hashtags (36 mm posts), and vaping-related hashtags (28 mm posts); wine and spirits trailed.
Marijuana: Exceedingly Popular on Instagram, as is Vaping.
While marijuana is only legal for recreational use in 4 states, and medicinal use in 26 states, it is widely popular on Instagram; consistent with the rates of 30 day consumption seen in U.S. government data for high schoolers. Specifically, the term “#high” is second only to “#drunk” on Instagram (17 mm and 9 mm, respectively), while government data on 12th grade incidence shows that 35% have used alcohol in the last 30 days, and 21% have used marijuana over the same time frame. The same holds true for vapor, though we would note that marijuana and vapor are not mutually exclusive as we found in our survey work that ~20% of vapors use THC/cannabis in vape form, often in addition to nicotine.
Beer: STZ is a Winner in Mainstream and Craft.
While Corona is the #5 beer brand in the U.S., “#corona” was the leading beer brand hashtag of the major brands that we analyzed (with 2.8 mm posts, relative to Budweiser at 1.5 mm, and Bud Light at 1.3 mm). Further, on the craft side, while Ballast Point remains small in the context of total beer, the brand had the highest rate of average likes per post of all the major brands that we looked at (averaging 3,100 likes per post, 23% ahead of Budweiser). Reiterate Outperform.
Energy Drinks: MNST Generating High Levels of Engagement.
Relative to other NARTD categories that we analyzed, energy drinks brands boasted the highest levels of engagement in terms of Instagram followers, as well as average likes per post and video. While MNST trailed Red Bull, the brand boasts much higher levels of engagement than is seen for brands like Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper. Reiterate Outperform.