Editorial

Citation

Bruwer, J. (2018), "Editorial", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 262-264. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWBR-06-2018-0026

Welcome to IJWBR, Issue 3 of 2018, in what is the journal’s 30th milestone year.

In this issue, IJWBR publishes seven research articles focussing on four wine countries/markets overall: USA, France, Italy and South Africa. A total of 20 authors were involved in writing these articles. The seven articles make theoretical and applied contributions and fit nicely together to contribute to greater understanding of wine marketing, wine consumer behaviour, wine business management, wine tourism and wine economics issues in general.

The first article by Kwong and Sun identifies the potential conflicts that arise between the actual (revealed) preferences of a panel of wine judges when the panel’s evaluation is derived by a linear aggregation of individual scores. The authors’ econometric research examines a relatively “basic” issue in the use of linear aggregations, namely, the unweighted average, as a representation of a judging panel’s evaluation of a wine in such settings. More specifically, the authors address the possibility of representing a tasting panel’s majority opinion by use of a linear wine score aggregation. They demonstrate that such a representation is not possible, and in fact, carries with it many unintended consequences. This makes for a strong case against the use of linear aggregation techniques in the categorical evaluation of wines. From a practical implications viewpoint, the summary of the wine evaluations of individual judges should therefore not rely on a linear wine score aggregation as it may misrepresent the benchmark used for such evaluations.

The second article by Ellis and Caruana reports the findings from an online survey of 187 US wine consumers to determine whether the components of objective and subjective knowledge can be used as a potential basis for market segmentation and targeting in the US wine market. The psychometric properties of the objective knowledge, subjective knowledge and classification measures were determined, and a two-dimensional segmentation typology was developed. This typology is based on two facets of consumer knowledge – objective and subjective knowledge. The findings supported the positive relationship between objective and subjective wine knowledge, while the combination of the two components led to the identification of four consumer market segments: neophytes, snobs, modest and experts. While previous research studies considered either objective or subjective knowledge individually, this study’s major contribution is its identification of the wine consumer segments on the basis of the combination of objective and subjective consumer knowledge. A consumer knowledge type grid was also developed.

The third article by Ingrassia, Altamore, Columba, Bacarella and Chironi investigates which dimensions of communication are effectively used by wineries to stimulate emotions of wine consumers that link Passito wine with the Island of Pantelleria of Italy. All websites of wineries producing Passito wine in Pantelleria were examined, using the AGIL (adaptation, goal-attainment, integration and latent pattern maintenance) scheme, which is commonly used for the study of communication as a social phenomenon scheme for measuring communication dimensions. The study finds that wineries and stakeholders should apply territory-based marketing strategies to add value to Passito wine, which are the symbol of the island. Synergistically, Pantelleria, through the use of its symbolic Passito wine product, could enhance its touristic activities. The results also show that there is still a gap between the actual and the potential use of the regional communicative power. The research contributes in that it is the first application in the wine marketing literature of a method that is generally used in sociological studies to investigate communication dimensions.

Moving on to the fourth article, Newton, Nowak and Kelkar offer deeper insights into the reasons why wine club members quit. This important issue has direct impact on a winery’s customer retention and profitability. Data were collected via an online survey from 399 US wine consumers who had been a member of a winery’s wine club before and cancelled their membership for some reason in the recent past. The results indicate that higher levels of perceived product quality, fair pricing, variety seeking and commitment to customer service at the beginning and at the end of a wine club membership lead to higher levels of customer satisfaction and a desire to recommend the club to others, even after quitting. Though variety seeking (switching) is more commonplace among experienced wine drinkers, the positive news for wineries is that consumers are more likely to recommend a wine club to others if at least a year has passed after they decided to quit as members.

The fifth article by Vink, Vannevel, Brand and Panzeri investigate the relevance of expert opinions as a marketing tool for Pinotage wine amongst a trained panel of 126 South African student millennials by means of sensory hedonic testing. Sensory hedonic testing was used because it was necessary to examine the extent to which extrinsic cues influence a wine’s intrinsic merit, as this can influence future purchase decisions. Thus, it combines marketing factors and sensory science and explores the sensory liking of wine products by consumers. Although Pinotage is known as a uniquely South African grape variety, almost no research has been done on wine consumers’ liking thereof. The results confirm that expert opinions are indeed an effective marketing tool. While positive expert opinions did not reinforce perceived quality for wines already generally liked, they increased perceived quality for wines that were not liked. Female student millennials specifically seem to be influenced by expert opinions and packaging, even though they showed a relative dislike for Pinotage wine under blind tasting.

The sixth article by Thach, Charters and Cogan-Marie identifies differentiation factors that Burgundian wineries in France use to distinguish their brand and to determine if these methods align or conflict with conventional/generic luxury marketing differentiation attributes. A qualitative approach yielding 23 in-depth interviews with various sized wineries as well as Burgundy market experts was used. In addition, document analysis of websites and marketing materials was carried out. The results show that Burgundian wineries have adopted some, but not all, of the luxury marketing differentiation attributes. Furthermore, there are a series of core tensions in the industry, including disagreement on using luxury marketing strategies. These findings contribute to the theory base in luxury wine marketing by illustrating how generic luxury marketing attributes are used for wine brand differentiation. They also highlight how these generic luxury differentiation attributes (high quality, high price, scarcity, heritage/symbolism, aesthetics/hedonism, status/privilege, sustainability) do not all function equally with every wine product. The information is also useful to assist related industries, such as food and spirits, which struggle in implementing luxury marketing strategies.

The seventh and final viewpoint article by Crick highlights the theoretical and methodological value of studying coopetition (the interplay between cooperation and competition) in a wine industry. A meta-analysis of key publications pertaining to wine industries across multiple countries was conducted to understand why the wine industry is a highly appropriate empirical context to investigate coopetition. This revealed that the wine industry is a unique business environment, and indeed a highly suitable empirical context for researchers to explore coopetition because high degrees of cooperation and competition exist, which is something that is rare for most industries. The dimensions and organisational performance outcomes (i.e. sales) of coopetition-oriented behaviours have been well-studied, but there is a need for research surrounding the antecedents of coopetition activities to help scholars and practitioners understand the best ways to manage such business strategies. More specifically, being a highly cooperative and competitive market, the wine industry provides a unique outlook into how coopetition is managed. The author recommends that researchers should use such an empirical context to study some of the research gaps pertaining to the coopetition literature.