Hashtag Instagram

By: Abigail Miller

Images are one of the best ways of communicating with friends, family, and consumers. If you are not familiar with Instagram (instagram.com), it is a social media outlet that is a fun way to share your life or business through a series of pictures. It is easy to use: snap a photo with your smartphone or tablet, chose a filter to enhance your photo, and then post to Instagram, using the free app, for all your followers to view. What images should you post? Pictures of your employees working, products you are creating and selling, events that you hold at your winery, and everything else that shows what it would be like to visit your tasting room.

Now, you may not see Instagram as a beneficial tool for marketing your wines and winery, but this blog will help you understand the many advantages of using…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Marketing & Social Media

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

Source:http://www.beveragemedia.com/index.php/2013/04/social-media-for-a-social-business/

Marketing is a key strategy for wineries, one that cannot be ignored, and using social media to inform consumers about the winery, wines, and events is an excellent way to build relationships with customers. John Gillespie, founder and CEO of Wine Opinions, stated that two-thirds of core wine drinkers (those who drink wine at least once a week) and 40% of marginal wine drinkers (those who drink wine less frequently) use the Internet in some form to get information about wine (Guenther, 2013). More than half of all wine drinkers are on Facebook; 25% use YouTube and Twitter (Nichols, 2011). The focus of this post will be to alert the industry about the Mid-Atlantic wine consumer’s use of social media and how important it is for wineries to develop an online presence (it’s really important, by the way!).

Many wineries are unsure whether social media will…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Everyday and Special Occasion Wines (Part II)

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

This is the second post where the focus is on comparing “everyday” and “special occasion” wine purchases. The emphasis will be on the preferred container composition and sweetness/dryness of the wines they purchase. For many consumers, they do not have a preference pertaining to bottle design or sweetness/dryness, but there is some variation that is noteworthy.

The majority of consumers (50.4%) indicated that they do not tend to purchase wines that are sweeter or dryer for “everyday” consumption compared to those they purchase for “special occasions.” For those who do have a preference, 33.9% of participants tend to purchase wines that are sweeter for “everyday” consumption compared to those they purchase for “special occasions.”

Figure 1. Participant response pertaining to whether sweetness/dryness of wine purchased for everyday consumption differs from wine purchased for special occasions

It is evident, just by looking at the various types of wines…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Everyday and Special Occasion Wines

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

Prior to purchasing a bottle of wine, consumers consider the type of occasion during which the wine will be served. We asked the 1,183 consumers who resided in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania and who participated in a 15-minute Internet survey if there was a difference in the type of wine they purchased for everyday consumption verse those purchased for special occasions. Nearly three quarters (72%) of respondents said they do purchase different wines for each occasion.

When comparing the price paid (for a 750 mL bottle) for both occasions, as might be expected, consumers purchased more expensive bottles of wine for “special occasions.” Nearly a third of participants reported spending $8.00 to $10.99 on a 750 mL bottle of wine, with slightly fewer purchasing wine priced between $11.00 and $14.99, for “everyday” purposes (Table 1), whereas approximately 40% of participants indicated that they spent between…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Consumption Patterns (Part II)

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

In our first “Consumption Pattern” post, we focused on the change in participant wine consumption and looked at the reasons behind the change in consumption between 2010 and 2013. For this post, we will be looking at differences in consumption for men and women and how this could potentially affect your marketing strategy.

Figure 1 depicts the percent distribution of how often survey participants reported consuming wine annually. The group with the greatest percentage of participants, 26% of respondents, indicated that they consumed wine “a few times a week,” followed by those who drank wine “two to three times a month” (23%). Though it is the smallest category, 7% of participants responded that they consumed wine “daily.”

Figure 1. Annual wine consumption patterns for survey participants

Looking at Figure 2, below, you will see the frequency which participants consumed wine segmented by gender. The consumption category…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Consumption Patterns

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

Sitting down after a long day at work and enjoying a refreshing glass of wine seems like the perfect end to a busy workday. Nearly a third (31%) of consumers (378 out of 1,183) who participated in our Internet survey indicated that their consumption of wine increased over the previous three years (Figure 1). The belief that a glass of wine a day benefits a wine consumer’s heart is one reason why participants increased their consumption. According to the Wine Institute website (www.wineinstitute.org), 856 gallons of wine were consumed in the United States in 2012, an increase from 836 million gallons consumed in 2011. It is likely that this trend will continue in 2014, and for years after.

Figure 1. Change in wine consumption (increased, not changed, decreased) over the past three years, as reported by Internet survey participants

In Figure 2 below, we state the reasons…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Purchase Patterns

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

This post describes survey participant purchasing patterns and outlets from which wines were purchased. Based on data collected from 1,183 consumers who participated in an Internet survey (20-25 September 2013), participants purchased wine anywhere from “daily,” to “a few times a week,” to only “a few times a year.” Outlets where consumers purchased wine differed depending on their state of residence, specific wine variety purchased, and other attributes.

Wine store

Figure 1 depicts the percent distribution of how often consumers reported purchasing wine annually. The group with the greatest percentage of participants, 34.1% of respondents, indicated that they purchased wine “a few times a year,” followed by those who purchased wine “once a month” (22.4%). Though it is the smallest category, 2.2% of participants responded that they purchased wine “daily.” Although 2.2% is a small percentage, there are some consumers that purchase wine every day, which can…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Demographics

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller

Before delving into the data collected during a 15-minute Internet survey conducted to quantify wine purchasing and consumption and wine consumers’ social media use, it will be beneficial to describe respondents who participated. As a reminder, 1,183 wine consumers, between ages 21 and 64, who had purchased and drank wine at least once within the previous year, and who resided in New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania participated in the study.

Of the 1,183 participants, 62.9% were female. Survey responses from our female participants will provide great insight as women make a majority of wine purchases in the United States (Tinney, 2014). The majority of participants, 58.5%, were married or in a partnership, followed by 33% who were single.

Participants were asked to select the category that best described their 2012 annual household income. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p60-245.pdf), in 2012, 24.3% of household incomes…

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Trends in the US Wine Industry for 2014 – Sunny Cellars with Some Cobwebs

Dr. Liz Thach, MW

The numbers for 2013 are in, and most experts are more optimistic about the 2014 wine market in the US. Though there are still some areas recovering less quickly from the recession (parts of the Midwest and some on-premise wine sales), in general “cellars are sunny but with a few lingering cobwebs.”

Following is a brief review of trends in the US wine market for 2014 and highlights of 2013. Sources include the Wine Marketing Council, Nielson,Silicon Valley Bank, Rabobank, Euromonitor, ShipCompliant, GuestMetrics, OIV, Wine Institute, Constellation Brands, Wine.com and Frederickson at the Unified Wine Symposium.

Wine Sales in the US in 2013

375.2 million cases of wine were shipped in 2013, 3% increase from 2012. This includes both domestic and imported wine.
The estimated retail value of 2013 wine shipments is $36.3 billion, a 5% increase from 2012. This makes…

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Consumer Attitudes and Behaviors towards Wine Purchases: Introduction to the Research

Penn State Extension Wine & Grapes U.

By: Abby Miller (Graduate Student at Penn State University)

Wineries are continuing to spring up in the Mid-Atlantic region (Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey). With more wineries entering the industry, it is essential to understand consumer preferences regarding wine produced within this region and others. Through an Internet survey conducted 20-25 September 2013, 1,183 participants answered questions concerning their wine purchasing and consumption attitudes and behaviors and their demographic and socioeconomic status. Panelists were screened for being at least 21 years old, residing in one of the targeted states (New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania), and for having purchased and drank wine at least once within the previous year.

The two graphs below depict some of the demographic information for survey participants. Figure 1 compares the age ranges of participants (e.g., age 21 to 24) based on their gender. A greater proportion of the survey respondents were female (63%)…

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