Flies in amber: Capturing brand equity-effects in South African rosé wines

With previous wine marketing studies confirming the effect of extrinsic cues such as price, area-of-origin, and expert ratings on sighted appreciation, we report on a tasting room experiment aimed to determine the prevalence and impact of wine brands across user categories of education, gender, expertise and age. Here 83 subjects assessed six different entry-level rosé wine brands, first blind and then sighted. During the sighted round the only cue information made available was the brand of each wine. A database of 498 paired blind and sighted wine assessments was thus constituted. The subsequent statistical interrogation of those factors impacting on a wine's sighted appreciation reveals (1) the extent to which certain wines present with significant brand effects, while others do not, and (2) how different brand assemblages accrue across certain user profiles. While two men's brands were clearly identified, females, in particular, appeared to be more influenced by certain brands, as did those with higher levels of education. The methods and findings of this paper demonstrate how one might more cost effectively test for and deploy particular brands within particular user categories.