Better-for-you energy drinks are shaking up the category: and come with an opportunity to broaden the market away from the typical, masculine image to one that appeals to women.
But how can brands ensure they’re appealing to women – and tapping into a new opportunity?
Celsius boasts 50% female fans
Tapping into the female market is something that’s happened very naturally for better-for-you energy drink brand Celsius. In fact, women now make up some 50% of its consumers.
So how has it done this? There’s been several key drivers, reveals Kyle Watson, chief marketing officer of Celsius.
For a start, there’s that first impression: with fruit-forward images on a clean, slim white can.
“I think that is one of the things that originally was more appealing to female consumers, compared to that larger can format with a lot of darker colors,” she said.
“But what we’ve really done is open people’s eyes to the different flavor profiles that are possible in this category. We went really fruit-forward: making energy super refreshing and accessible. Traditional energy has skewed a little bit different.
“And then it’s about the branding and how we position ourselves. So whether it’s on social media or with different brand partners or athletes or fitness-focused communities... we’ve made a point to speak to both male and female communities within these groups.”
Better-for-you branding offers female focus
Celsius is in a good spot to appeal to female consumers. For a start, it benefits from being one of the up-and-coming better-for-you energy drinks in the market with a positive, lifestyle fit for energy.
That means it that appeals to a wider demographic of both male and female consumers (compared, for example, to the traditional young, male, energy drink consumer).
And this is all part of the overall evolution of the hot energy drink space, which is growing 4.5% YOY in dollar value and 2% in volume, according to senior director of market insights at SPINS, Scott Dicker.
“People are really interested in the energy drink space: it’s really growing audiences,” he said. “We have a lot of active nutrition brands entering: Celsius, Alani Nu, Ghost, who have changed the way energy drinks have been perceived."
Energy drinks might once have been about parties and extreme sports: now they’re about fitness, lifestyle, and a pick-me-up energy boost for any moment throughout the day. And again, that’s opening up the market to more consumers and more women.
“There are a couple of brands starting to position towards women, and it’s part of the broadening of the category,” noted Dicker.
But one thing needs to be clear straight away: most of these brands aren’t turning their cans pink.
Pink toys for girls repeatedly causes outrage among women, opening up conversations about gender stereotypes. Back in the beverage industry, attempts to create pink ‘beer for girls’ to expand the category to a new audience have backfired. Brands have to be careful of how they approach the subject.
What has worked so far is, for brands like Celsius, is toning down the heavy masculine cues and becoming more welcoming to women without going full pink.
“What I’ve typically seen is the brand positioning, softer marketing, whereas lots of energy drinks used to have much more ‘masculine’ marketing,” said Dicker.
Asking the right question
But brands shouldn’t be thinking about appealing to women. They should be thinking about appealing to both men and women.
“There’s going to be an opportunity [to appeal to women] if you can do it well, and there are a couple of brands doing that,” said Dicker. “But I think whenever you’re limiting yourself to half the population, it’s probably not ideal.”
Brands need to decide if they are to be solely-female focused; or a brand that appeals to both genders.
Back to Celsius. If around 50% of its consumers are female, that means the other 50% are still male.
“We have attracted a lot of females into the category in general, but also to our brand,” said Watson of Celsius. “But we have maintained a pretty even split among female and male.”
Fruit flavors might appeal to women; but they don’t alienate men either. Slim cans might look more elegant to women, but they’re hardly ‘girly’.
“Our brand has appealed to women in a way where we’ve intentionally not left out males. So it’s a product that really resonates with females, but at the same time still resonates with males,” said Watson.
