“I want to feel calm and at peace”
According to our global research, 14% of all beverage occasions, for dairy, juice and still drink beverage occasions, are to satisfy the need for Comfort.
In short, Comfort is about creating me moments away from it all and wanting to feel calm and at peace. It’s about humans cocooning and pampering themselves.
It’s also about wanting or needing to restore the balance. This could be by choosing a cool, refreshing, thirst-quenching drink on a warm day or a beverage which provides functional benefits to help approach work or everyday tasks in a calm and relaxed manner.
Consumers typically tell us: “I want a drink that helps me relax and cope with the world around me. It is not about showing off, I just want something relaxing.”.
Alone moments
Comfort-motivated beverage occasions are about consumers finding ways to cope with the noise and stress of the outside world and making sure they have a moment to themselves to give themselves a break.
It’s only natural therefore that comfort-motivated beverage are mainly consumed alone. Watching TV (18%), relaxing at home, listening to music or reading (15%), having breakfast (15%) and taking a break (14%) are the occasions which index higher in the research.
Generations with Comfort in common
Notably, Comfort is a Need State which is stable across consumer generations from millennials to seniors.
A higher number of Comfort-motivated beverage occasions take place in Japan and Taiwan (both markets are over-index in juice, nectars and still drinks according to the research); when we look at the actual beverages related to this Need State, this is more likely to be the result of engrained cultural habits rather than shorter term fads or trends.
So, what are they drinking?
When it comes to the need for Comfort and cool, refreshing, thirst-quenching drinks, the research shows the following beverages to be the best fit:
Tea and coffee-based drinks (18% and 20% of all beverage occasions)
Followed by fruit-based smoothies
UHT and flavored milks
Lactic acid drinks
Yoghurt-based smoothies
Their ideal product and package
If you are to translate this into a product personality, it is a calm, easy-going product.
Likewise, the ideal package has all the characteristics that basically match with comfort and not showing off for example, a fairly traditional shape and one that consumers are used to.
It is also easy to hold and drink from and is a single serve portion size from 250 – 600 ml.
Source: Tetra Pak Global Occasion-based Need States Segmentation Research 2017.