Oh how Gen Z loves TikTok!
The social media platform, now dubbed the world’s fastest-growing brand, has more than 1 billion monthly active users and around 60% of them are Gen Z. Furthermore, the app has an unprecedented capability for “trendsetting,” powered by an algorithm the viral nature of its algorithm causing beauty items to sell out overnight and a language learning app mascot to gain over 35 million views.
To better understand beverage trends that could give innovation and research & development teams some inspiration, the Helio insights team set out to see what beverage flavors were trending on TikTok with a hashtag analysis using #_____drink. Examples of this include #appledrink, #peachdrink, and #watermelondrink.
The global beverage industry is expected to reach over $1.8 trillion by 2024, and with Gen Z quickly becoming one of the highest spending groups in the world. In fact, Business Insider estimates that by 2030 this cohort will reach $33 trillion in spending power, representing nearly 30% of the world's income and surpassing of millennials’ spending power the following year. With so many Gen Z users on the platform, trend insights are a great place to being understanding this generation’s preferences.
The Most Popular Beverage Flavors on TikTok
1. Peach
The number one flavor on TikTok is “Peach.” The ever-popular hashtag #PeachDrink has over 39.7 million views, more than three times as many as the second most popular flavor.
While one might think that there must be one very popular trend accounting for the vast number of views on this hashtag, content creators are actually talking about a variety of peach flavored beverages including a Starbuck’s peach fizzy drink, peach cocktails and mocktails, peach iced tea, and peach sodas in their videos.
The relative strength of “Peach” versus other beverages flavors being discussed on the platform should be noted as a fruitful area for further research into beverage, as well as adjacent category, trends.
2. Chocolate
“Chocolate” is the second most popular beverage flavor on TikTok with over 10.1 million views related to #ChocolateDrink. Similar to #PeachDrink, popular videos using #ChocolateDrink span a variety of beverages, including hot chocolate, chocolate milk, chocolate martinis, chocolate milkshakes, nostalgic chocolate beverages such as Yoo Hoo, and more.
3. Mango*
“Mango” closely follows “Fruit,” with 9 million views associated with #MangoDrink.
*When we initially ran this analysis in March, “Mango” only had 9 million views, today, “Mango” has 13.5 million views and has surpassed “Fruit” in popularity.
4. Fruit
Perhaps unsurprisingly, “Fruit” is the third most popular beverage flavor on TikTok with 9.2 million views of content with #FruitDrink. Popular videos include mentions of slush, sangria, agua fresca, mojitos, and smoothies.
The Least Popular Beverage Flavor on TikTok
Grape, Cola, and Apple performed relatively low compared to other flavors captured. #GrapeDrink only 1.3 million views for #GrapeDrink. With legacy beverages like grape soda and grape juice, along with newer genres of grape-based beverages such as low and no alcohol wines, “Grape” being one of the least popular flavors on the platform is surprising.
*Further analysis of synonyms may be warranted to identify full grape trends.
Interesting Flavors to Note
We have to give an honorable mention to “Kiwi” and “Cucumber” for having 4 million and 3 million views respectively. These flavors are less common in current beverage offerings overall, but showcase strong interest among TikTok users.
As of March 2022 | Source: Helio
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