Good Grape Wine Company

February 6 2006

The Great Equilizer

The Wine Institute released a bunch of press releases early in January—all based on consumer research that they conducted with Yankelovich Monitor, a consumer research and trend-spotting company.

Interestingly, it said that wine consumers are among a group of consumers that are on the leading edge of shoppers: 

http://www.wineinstitute.org/communications/statistics/USWineConsumerResearch.html

Included in that blurb is the fact that wine consumers are:

1) Open to new experiences
2) Follow their own path in life
3)  Are Information savvy and confident
4) Desire intangibles, experiences and emotions
5)  Eschew brands as badges

This seems to me to be pretty dead-on.  But, what is incongruent to me is the brand as a badge.  So, what the research is saying, I think, is that wine drinkers aren’t exclusively brand loyal.  Woman who may carry Kate Spade purses will buy multiple labels without an overt consciousness about the label they are buying. 

And, I believe it.  Oddly, here, I think the ‘brand as a badge of honor’ goes to the approximately 2% of the wine drinking population that fall into the snob category.

That’s pretty interesting to me ... so, a woman that wears Jimmy Choo shoes and carries a Prada bag might, in an interaction, be intimidated by a wine drinker that really knows his stuff.

Somewhere Booger Armstrong is smiling.

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