Editorial

Citation

Orth, U.R. (2008), "Editorial", International Journal of Wine Business Research, Vol. 20 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijwbr.2008.04320caa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: International Journal of Wine Business Research, Volume 20, Issue 3.

This year's third issue holds six articles by researchers from North America, China, Denmark and France covering a nice variety of topics as appropriate for an international journal.

The first article, a joint work by five researchers from Texas Tech University, examines a little researched issue, the relationship between brand equity and brand survival. Over a period of 16 years two facets of brand equity, brand awareness and perceived quality, are related to survival of 27 brands. The findings indicate that higher brand awareness definitely increases the chances of a brand's survival. Consumer-perceived higher quality, however, is not a very reliable predictor. With thousands of wine brands competing for buyers this information can be very helpful to brand managers in addition to advancing research.

The second article by French researchers Masson, Aurier and d'Hauteville studies the effect of information (i.e. alcohol content) on consumer acceptance of wines. This research is interesting for the methodology used, and for advancing our knowledge on consumer response to label information vs blind tasting. No differences in consumer liking of low-alcohol and regular wine were found in blind tasting whereas consumers exhibited negative expectations when provided with the “low-alcohol”-cue. As winemakers across the world are working on reducing alcohol levels, these findings should hold particular appeal for many wineries.

The third article by economists Bentzen and Smith tackles the issue of explaining Champagne prices on the Scandinavian market by contrasting a hedonic function with product attributes as predictors with expert ratings. While the hedonic price function explains prices fairly well, wine expert ratings (i.e. by Robert Parker) perform just as well. The authors conclude that – for regular consumers – there is no need to expend resources on seeking detailed information on Champagne quality. This finding raises some interesting issues regarding the perceived price–perceived quality relationship.

The fourth article continues the emerging stream of publications on wine in China. The authors (Jenster and Cheng) provide insights into the Chinese wine industry from its beginnings to its current stage which – from an international perspective – probably still constitutes its infancy. Although not a research paper in the traditional sense, readers will find a comprehensive overview and background information on Chinese domestic wine production, trade, and wine consumption. Researchers may find it useful for outlining opportunities for a stream of valuable future research.

The fifth article (Terrien and Steichen) deals with the issue of social influences on consumer preferences and choice for goods of conspicuous consumption (termed “taste goods”) in a framework of network externalities. Applying their model to Champagne, Cognac and the famous Petrus wine, the authors conclude that consumer choices will change over time with the equilibrium depending on the behaviors of both consumers susceptible to external influence and others.

The sixth article, an exploratory study by Harrington and Ottenbacher, focuses on how the influences of both traditional attitudes and the new world winemaking are driving changes in the German wine industry. Not necessarily limited to its German context, this paper sheds new light on the Old World vs New World debate by adopting a qualitative method. The authors conclude – based on interviews with five renowned German winemakers – that successful wine producers strike a balance between the identity of their region and the adoption of innovative technologies, business models and trends.

Ulrich R. Orth