Using Wine Drinkers Like Lab Mice
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Feb 19, 2007 5:22PM
Most of us know people who hoard wine like fine jewels. We also know poeple who have Pavlovian reactions to gaudy price tags or buzzwords regarding wine. Still more of us are so intimidated by wine that we freeze up when put in the position of ch-ch-choosing one. Now, why one of the largest wine holding companies in the world conducted what amounts to a large-scale survey to find this out, we don't know. At a conference last month, Constellation Wines released the results of its "Project Genome" research project. Project Genome was conceived to gain some understanding of the wine consumer. Or, as Constellation calls it, "understanding the DNA of the premium wine consumer." This conjures in our head visions of winos on giant hamster wheels, reaching in vain for a feeder full of chardonnay.
Misleading subtitle aside, Constellation questioned over 3500 premium wine consumers for its survey. Using a baseline of wines with a list price of five dollars and above, which represents sixty percent of total dollar wine sales, and forty percent of case sales. The results placed wine consumers into two segments of three categories — "enthusiast," "image seeker," and "savvy shopper" (or "sexy" wine drinkers, people who already know what they want and are knowledgeable about wine), in addition to "traditionalist," "satisfied sipper," and "overwhelmed," called the "blocking and tackling" segment here. These are the consumers that stick with labels and brands they know, are hesitant to try something different, or find wine intimidating.
The study found that consumers in the "overwhelmed" category made up 23 percent of consumers surveyed. That's the largest percentage of wine drinkers surveyed. However, "overwhelmed" wine consumers also bought the least amount of wine (11 percent). "Overwhelmed" wine drinkers in the study have a hard time choosing from the vast range of wine options available today, become more confused reading labels, and often enlist in the help of someone more comfortable with wine in making a decision. Unsurprisingly, Project Genome is geared toward maximizing the profit potential of those bottom three categories of wine drinkers. The survey noted that if "overwhelmed" drinkers alone bought six more bottles of wine a year, the wine industry would see an increase of $245 million in sales. Project Genome concludes that wine salespeople should focus on moving more of the "blocking and tackling" segment to the "sexy" segment. Now, we've sat through the Project Genome PowerPoint presentation and were surprised to find that Constellation had no suggestions to making wine more accessible to these consumers. None.
It's like they spent a lot of money just in order for us to say "duh!"