Non-alcoholic Beer: Hedonic or Utilitarian?

Abstract

In the 1980’s a wave of healthy version brand extensions hit the beverage market, and especially sugar free soda became one of the most popular products. Non-alcoholic beer, though introduced to the market at the same time has not enjoyed the same success. Very little research has been done on attributes and advertising of non-alcoholic beers. This thesis aims to shed light on advertising for non-alcoholic beers in comparison to regular alcohol beer. Through theory on hedonic and utilitarian consumption, emotional advertising and segmentation, this thesis contributes to literature by placing non-alcoholic beer on the hedonic/utilitarian scale. Furthermore, through empirical analysis, the placement on the scale is tested in regard to advertising through a multimodal discourse analysis. This paper takes a social constructivist perception, as it discursively analyzes and compare three sets of advertisements: one alcohol beer advertisement and one non-alcoholic beer advertisement from the brands Heineken, Carlsberg and Tuborg. Results of the analysis reveal that even though non-alcoholic beer may be theoretically placed as a utilitarian product; this is not backed by the empirical analysis. The results of the empirical analysis do not support that advertisements for non-alcoholic beers have utilitarian attributes. It is discussed that potential reasons for this are practitioners’ lack of knowledge of theory, aim to position non-alcoholic beer differently than suggested by theory and culture.