With Omicron on the rise and many people still wary of big festive parties, new data has shown that Christmas 2021 saw a sharp downturn in interest for traditional fizzy favourites champagne and Prosecco.
Online searches for ‘champagne’ fell by more than a quarter (27%) in the period 1-25 December 2021 compared to the previous year, while searches for ‘Prosecco’ dropped by 29%. Another Christmas party favourite, ‘eggnog’, saw searches fall by 19%.
In fact, searches for wines and beers more broadly fell by 23% during the run-up to Christmas this year.
A number of popular beer brands also saw online activity fall away in December compared to the same time in 2020: searches for ‘Budweiser’ dropped by a third (34%), ‘Stella Artois’ by a quarter (23%) and ‘Coors Light’ by almost half (45%).
The analysis was carried out by online search expert MediaVision, using its proprietary Digital Demand Tracker tool that analyses search data from AdWords and Google Trends. See https://www.wearemediavision.com/digital-demand-tracker
However, a few beers and wines bucked the trend and saw online activity rise in December. On the wine side, searches for ‘Pinot Gris’ were up 13% and ‘Viognier’ by 51%, while searches for Dutch beer brand ‘Amstel’ were up 15%.
Louis Venter, CEO at MediaVision, comments: “Eggnog, champagne and Prosecco have long been mainstays of the Christmas party, and parties have been thin on the ground this year thanks to the continuing risk of the pandemic.
“It’s too early to say that the data shows a shift in the UK’s drinking habits more broadly, but we also carried out research for all of 2021 that showed online searches for ‘gin’ were down 14% year on year, while searches for ‘gin & tonic’ decreased by 22%.”
