Many of us take the festive season as a chance to overindulge slightly, but as we begin to settle back into our usual routines and day-to-day life, initiatives like Dry January and Veganuary are ever more popular options.
And, of course, brands jump on them too, encouraging and supporting their consumers who are choosing to ditch the booze for a few weeks. With some arguably even close to the level of the 75 very best print ads of all time, here are some of the Dry January ad campaigns we’ve seen this year.
Bubly, the flavoured sparkling water brand that forms part of PepsiCo, has put an interesting spin on things by encouraging consumers to help stay on track before ‘Quitter’s Day’, or January 10 – research has indicated that many of us only last ten days into the month before reaching for a drink.
Taking the ‘press for champagne’ trend that you may have seen across social media, Bubly has designed ‘press for Bubly’ buttons. Beginning on the 10th, ten winners across Los Angeles, New York and Chicago will be able to get free Bubly straight to their door within the hour, while across the rest of the US, the first 1,000 people to sign up on the ‘press for Bubly’ website will get free eight-pack cases of the drink.
CANN, a brand of THC and CBD-infused drinks, is encouraging consumers to switch out alcohol for their cannabis beverages with a humorous Instagram post lampooning the popular ‘affirmations’ accounts on the photo-sharing platform.
Meanwhile, Hendrick’s Gin, in typically unconventional form, is calling itself Hendrick’s Gym, and has developed five different ‘workouts’, from weighted cocktail shaking to high-repitition garnishing – after all, Dry January often goes hand-in-hand with those New Year’s resolutions to hit the gym. They say that they’re training gin fans to hone their cocktail-making skills this month.
Olipop, a brand of prebiotic sodas, doesn’t usually market itself as an alternative to alcohol, but after some social media buzz last year – with people pouring their Olipop into wine glasses and influencer Gracie Norton using Olipop in a mocktail – it’s changing tack slightly. And that’s where Dry January comes in.
The brand’s director of growth and partnerships, Steven Vigilante, explained that Olipop wanted to go a step further than posting recipes on social media, by launching a chatbot to give consumers recipes based on the flavours of Olipop, and the other ingredients, they have at home. Olivier, the digital ‘soda sommelier’, will generate one of 20 mocktail recipes based on the information provided.
Meanwhile, Olipop has paired up with Instacart to give away 5,000 cans of drink throughout the month, with consumers able to log into the Instacart app every Friday in January to receive two cans with their order.
But it’s not just drinks brands who are making the most of Dry January. Bulldog Skincare has launched a campaign in the UK to encourage consumers to make sure it’s not their skin that’s dry this month. The ‘Non-Dry January’ campaign consists of outdoor advertising in major commercial centres in large cities, as well as online adverts.
For some perhaps less well-thought-out branding, there's always WHSmith, while Hershey has also found itself in a spot of bother over its Reese’s chocolate of late.
