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Rewriting the rules or playing the game?

'Rewriting the rules or playing the game? An investigation into the ways in which social norms around gender & drinking are challenged &/or reinforced through the promotion, marketing & consumption of Alcohol-Free drinks' is a 1-year research project conducted by Dr Emily Nicholls in the Department of Sociology and funded by the Institute of Alcohol Studies.

The ‘alcohol-free’ or ‘no and low’ (NoLo) alcohol market is expanding in the UK, and we know that drinking rates are declining amongst parts of the population alongside a growth in the popularity of ‘temporary abstinence initiatives’ such as Dry January. Whilst the UK government has expressed an interest in supporting the expanding NoLo market as a strategy to offer increased choice for consumers and to support them to drink in more moderate ways, there is limited research on the implications of this growing market and its potential to alleviate (or indeed exacerbate) the harms caused by alcohol in the UK and more widely.

 Further research is required to explore the ways in which NoLo products are marketed and promoted (including by leading players in the Alcohol Industry), including the ways in which this marketing may challenge and / or reinforce particular social norms around gender and drinking. A greater understanding of the ways in which both drinkers and non-drinkers incorporate NoLo products into their own everyday consumption regimes is also needed.