Filling the gap - how do sensory and marketing attributes interact in consumer choice?
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(Published version)
Date
2011
Authors
Mueller, S.
Osidacz, P.
Francis, I.L.
Lockshin, L.
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Conference paper
Citation
Proceedings of the14th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference 2010, 2011, pp.223-229
Statement of Responsibility
Conference Name
The Fourteenth Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (3 Jul 2010 - 8 Jul 2010 : Adelaide, Australia)
Abstract
Once viticulturists and oenologists produce flavours and aromas that are positively perceived by consumers in blind tastings, the question remains how much they actually influence consumers’ wine liking, choice and repurchase intent in the presence of marketing attributes such as brand, packaging, region and price. While traditional consumer sensory research focuses mainly on blind sensory evaluation, in reality most consumers drink and evaluate wine in an informed condition, being aware of the price and label information. What is the relative impact of sensory and marketing attributes when consumers drink wine in realistic settings and which are the sensory attributes that cut through the marketing clutter? To provide first answers to these questions, we report results from a two-stage experiment for Australian Shiraz wines, simulating the process of a consumer choosing a wine from the shelf, tasting the wine, and making a repurchase decision. We found consumers’ choices from the shelf, capturing the influence of extrinsic marketing attributes, highly predictive for actual market sales, as indicated by AC Nielsen scanner data. How much consumers liked a wine after tasting was strongly influenced by a wine’s price and did not relate to actual sales. The repurchase intent after tasting was most strongly driven by consumers’ initial choices and a number of sensory attributes, confirming that both extrinsic marketing and intrinsic sensory attributes substantially influence the purchase decision.
Across all consumers, sweetness and fresh fruit aromas had a significant positive influence on informed liking. Aromas found in older wines, such as sherry, medicinal and earthy-vegetal, negatively influenced the evaluations of the majority of consumers. One wine had an ‘eggy’ aroma related to sulfide compounds and this wine was also not well-liked. We identified three consumer segments that each prefer different wine styles. Our results are notable as all the wines studied were currently released vintages, providing guidance to wine companies to avoid having wines on the market with high reductive or oxidative flavours, which could impact consumer liking and repurchase intent, notwithstanding the presence of marketing attributes8