Alcohol brands tend to use social media more and more not only for promotion but for selling. The C&C Group’s Magners cider announced it would become the first alcoholic drink brand to be sold via Facebook. 

Photo: brandpro.org

According to The Grocer, the Magners announcement comes days after Diageo unveiled it steps up into a multi-million dollar partnership with Facebook to join business planning. Facebook will provide strategic consultancy to Diageo’s priority brands in its main creation centers—New York, London, Amsterdam, Dublin, Sao Paulo and Singapore. Diageo and its agencies will work closely with Facebook teams from concept development, through campaign creation to execution.

Diageo’s study revealed that its five brands increased 20% in sales as a result of Facebook activity. Diageo’s brands collective fan base grew from 3.5 million to 12 million in the past 12 months and Smirnoff is now the number one beverage alcohol brand on Facebook worldwide.

Magners, which has more than 6,000 Facebook fans so far, is intended to raise awareness of Specials, and use Facebook as a sales channel.

«F-commerce is in the very early stages, so at the moment it is simply a great way to increase offline sales by driving trial,» said marketing head Kirsty Hunter. «In years to come, however, we may see more consumers making their purchases in this way.»

On the other hand, industry experts seem not to be happy with the concept of alcohol being sold online. Claire Nuttall, Insight and Innovation Director at 1HQ, comments on the infinitive “It is frightening to think selling alcohol via Facebook would be possible with such extensive youth traffic regularly using Facebook. There would surely be uproar amongst parents with young children and lobbying groups that the right policing has not been put in place to prevent underage children buying alcohol more easily.”

Although, Magners says it prevents the cider sales to under 18’s through a three-tier system, including an age gate and a payment portal that would only accept payment by credit card.

The brand has also launched a national press and food magazine campaign using smartphone image recognition app Aurasma, which will activate interactive content when users place their phone over the ad. The first a limited-edition run of Magners Specials gift packs will be sold for £10 including UK delivery.