Molson Coors Bets on D2C with Online-only Mocktail Brand

Molson Coors is stepping up its digital presence with the launch of D2C-only mocktails.

The beverage giant, which owns a range of popular alcoholic brands, including Coors, Miller, Vizzy and others, announced Tuesday (Jan. 10) the launch of its Roxie line of nonalcoholic cocktails available only via the brand’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) eCommerce site.

“[Roxie] packs layers of flavorful complexity, delivering a line of zero-proof cocktails built for those who want to moderate their drinking, abstain or simply sip on something fantastic,” Jamie Wideman, vice president of innovation at Molson Coors, said in a statement.

The release of the brand offers the opportunity for the beverage company to build direct relationships with its customers without dealing with the logistical nightmare that is selling liquor online.

For Molson Coors, the advantages of selling D2C include gathering data about their customers and marketing to them directly rather than relying on retailers and marketplaces to mediate those relationships.

“[D2C] is the channel with the most added value for the consumer. You have a rewards program, you have specific products, you have unique events. It’s where you can really create the relationship to the brand,” Nicolas Stehle, CEO of cloud-based eCommerce solution Scalefast, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in a 2021 interview.

Given age verification requirements and other legal limits imposed on alcohol sales, with the added complication of state-to-state variations in these regulations, the process can be prohibitively complex.

“Every brand, from Nike to Gucci to Dove body wash, has been able to sell directly to the consumer, but alcohol companies quite literally are getting left behind,” Devaraj Southworth, CEO and co-founder of Thirstie, an alcoholic beverage-focused technology company, told PYMNTS in an interview.

Plus, popular third-party eCommerce options for alcohol sales tend to pose major challenges for alcohol brands, offering little to no information about how products are faring on their marketplace. In a more recent conversation with PYMNTS, OVO Vodka Chief Operating Officer Jon Dunnington explained that, through Uber’s Drizly platform, the brand can see which vendors are on the digital marketplace but cannot see sales figures.

Not only does the mocktail offer a way to sidestep the challenges related to selling alcohol online, but it also represents a type of product that often does well on D2C channels — one that targets a large but still niche segment of the population whose needs typically go unmet at traditional retailers. Tuesday’s news release notes an IWSR study predicting that the nonalcoholic beverage category will grow 27.6% among 21- to 25-year-olds between 2021 and 2025.

Nearly half of all consumers engage with D2C brands each month, according to data from the July edition of PYMNTS’ ConnectedEconomy study, The ConnectedEconomy Monthly Report: Rise of the Smart Home. The study, which draws from a survey of nearly 2,700 U.S. consumers, found that 45% of consumers had made eCommerce purchases directly from brands in the previous 30 days, and half of them did so weekly or more.

Plus, the share of eCommerce customers continues to rise, according to U.S. Census Bureau data on the recent past and projections of digital sales.