A Roy Morgan report has confirmed what many Australians already suspected – Queenslanders love their dark rum, and they love a brand from their own backyard the most.
The figures reveals that while four per cent of Australian adults drink dark rum in an average four-week period, the figure is more than double that in Queensland, where 8.3 per cent of adult drinkers are doing the same.
The report also shows that Bundaberg rum is clearly the brand of choice, with six per cent of Queenslanders pouring a Bundy compared to the 2.4 per cent national average.
Roy Morgan General Manager of Consumer Goods Andrew Price says that Queenslanders are a parochial lot, with XXXX Gold showing similarly high consumption statistics of 14.3 per cent in its home state compared to 5.4 per cent across Australia.
“In any given four-week period, almost half the Australians who drink Bundaberg rum are from Queensland,” he said. “A sense of regional pride may contribute to the spirit’s popularity in its home state, especially since we see the same over-representation of Queenslanders when it comes to XXXX consumption.
“But while the brand is inextricably linked with the Sunshine State, this shouldn’t prevent it from being drunk more widely across the nation. Obviously, there are people from other states who do consume it, but there is plenty of room for expanding its national penetration.”
Mr Price said Roy Morgan used its Helix Personas profiling tool to take a snapshot of the Australian Bundy drinker, which he says can help retailers connect and communicate with potential Bundaberg consumers.
“Helix Personas shows that people from the up-and-coming, house-proud ‘today’s families’ and low-income, true-blue ‘battlers’ communities are considerably more likely than the average Aussie to drink Bundaberg,” he said. “Both groups can be found around the country – battlers, in particular, are distributed very widely across urban and country areas of all states and territories.
“If Bundaberg focused on reaching these segments of the population with tailored communications, they could find the brand’s market increasing exponentially.”