Seasonality has undoubtedly an effect on consumer buying behaviours and is something that has a particularly strong influence on the alcohol market. In the summer season you’re likely perched in the sun, sipping on your favourite spritz, whilst in the winter, a whisky on the rocks by the fire is a little more warming.

There is an abundance of ways in which brands can use seasonal trends in the market to their benefit, from diversification of their product range to tweaking a spirit to keep it relevant all year round. To give a helping hand, we have put together our top tips on how alcohol brands can tackle seasonality.

Smart Distillers Diversify

An excellent route to go down to keep sales high all year round is through diversifying your product range. The best method for brands with products that are not popular year-round is horizontal diversification, as this involves expanding into new products that are unrelated to the current offering but target the same consumers. For example, a company producing Irish crème which is notoriously more popular over the Christmas period, may introduce a line of gins for the summertime.

This tactic is so beneficial to brands, as they see sales declining from their ‘summer’ drink, they will see a rise in sales for their ‘winter’ drink. Find out more about this method in our ‘Why Smart Distillers Diversify’ blog. If you’re looking to test the waters with a new SKU, our catalogue range of bottles could be the perfect solution.

Dress for the Season

Decoration is a powerful component to keeping your products loved year-round, and this can boost sales not only through the seasons, but over special holidays. A great example of how this has been done is the Marks and Spencer globe gins. Their Christmas snow globe gin was such a smash hit that, come summer time, they wanted to create something equally as eye catching, but with a strawberry gin liqueur instead of their Christmas flavours. For this we took their original globe gin bottle and took the decoration in a different direction, printing on a delightful strawberry pattern using UV inks on our Kammann machine to give it that summer flair.

Not only is decoration a delightful addition to your gorgeous glass, but it is an extremely cost-effective way to jazz up your products. Eliminating the process of new bottle design and development and is a sure fire to bottle differentiation.Gin and vodka distillers have an extra benefit in dealing with seasonality in that they can simply add new seasonal flavours to their spirit range. A delicious example of this is Warner’s warming Christmas Cake Gin, which was filled to the brim with notes of chocolate, fruit and treacle. An absolutely delightful tipple to help keep Warner’s sales high during the winter months. Whereas through spring and summer, floral and fruity flavours are mostly what we see on the menu.

Built for Growth

Here at hy phoenix, we specialise in bringing the world’s premium brands to life through the art of glass packaging and aiding our customers growth through our abilities in glass design, manufacture and decoration. Through a combination of expert knowledge on the industry and passion for creative design, we produce distinctive bottles recognised across the world.

If you would be interested in working with us on breathing life into your brand through glass, please get in contact with our team.