Beer... Most preferred Urban Drink!

A research conducted by Qilo, a new age marketing communications consultancy and Juxt, the leading online research-based advisory firm, has revealed that over one third of the internet users in India, above 25 years of age, consume alcohol, with a majority of them preferring beer over any other alcoholic drink.

Kingfisher overwhelmingly led among beer brands with 53% of beer drinkers on the Net citing it as their favorite brand, followed by Haywards 5000 and Fosters, which together made up for less than half the number polled by Kingfisher.

Beer emerged as the #1 choice, with 44% of alcohol consumers citing it as their favorite drink, while close to one-fourth (26%) of them preferred whiskey the most. Vodka, preferred by 14% of them and Rum, preferred by 9% took the third and fourth spots respectively. Only 6% of those alcohol consumers on Internet cited wine as their favorite drink. Just about 1.5% showed their preference for Gin.

In Whiskey, the brands competed more closely, with Royal Stag leading at 21%, followed by Blenders Pride at 17%. While Smirnoff was cited as the favorite drink among 37% of Vodka drinkers, Old Monk and Bacardi together accounted for 80% of the choices in Rum category. Blue Riband led dominantly among Gin drinkers with 48% of them citing it as their choice.

"The study just reiterates Qilo's strong belief in online as an excellent medium to reach out to the consumers in lifestyle categories like alcohol. Some of the brands are already leveraging the power of social media to engage with the consumers. Kingfisher, which emerged as the leading brand in the research, for example, also leads in its social media following among its peers," said Vipul Mathur, co-founder, Qilo.

The online survey was conducted from Juxt's access panel, India Research Panel (an initiative of Juxt & Youmint) among 656,596 net users above 25 years old, residents of top 12 cities. Of the total number of respondents, nearly a third of the total respondents (210,000) stated that they consumed alcohol. About 90% of the online alchol drinkers are male, 55% of them are aged 30 to 39 years and 45% come from Delhi & Mumbai.

"Internet is an excellent medium to not only study usage and brand loyalty but also drive engagement in categories like alcohol, as there are close to 28 to 30 million drinkers on the Net in India," said Mrutyunjay, co-founder Juxt. "More interestingly, 19% of the whiskey drinkers and 14% of vodka drinkers on the net consume premium brands," he added.