Margaux Vannevel, Jeanne Brand, Valeria Panzeri, Nick Vink Marketing wines to South African Millennials: the effect of expert opinions on the perceived quality of Pinotage wines Margaux Vannevel, Jeanne Brand, Valeria Panzeri, Nick Vink

Introduction South Africa is a wine producing country with relatively low and stagnant per capita consumption: only 7.31 litres per capita in 2014 (8.7 litres per capita in 1994). Therefore producers must capture the potential of new and emerging markets to sustain the industry in the future and to grow domestic consumption. Generation Y, also known as the Millennial generation born between 1980 and 2000, has emerged as one of the most important consumer groups domestically. This generation is large (40% of SA’s population) and has substantial purchasing power

Introduction While Pinotage is known as the South African grape, little research has been done on consumer liking and acceptance The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of expert opinions as a marketing tool to market Pinotage to South African Millennials: Do expert opinions influence the hedonic liking of Pinotage for South African Millennials? Does the relevance of expert opinions differ for male and female Millennials? Does the relevance of expert opinions differ for Millennials with a high involvement in wine compared to Millennials with a low involvement?

Experimental design Sensory hedonic testing in the sensory lab of the Department of Viticulture and Oenology at the University of Stellenbosch. Participants were Stellenbosch University students and employees, contacted via e-mail. 126 young Millennials took part in the study, 101 datasets were used for statistical analysis Data captured over a series of four days and ten one- hour tasting session

Sample profile

Experimental design Each participant had to take part in a one hour tasting session, tasting three sets of seven Pinotage wines where they had to indicate their liking of each wine on a 9-point hedonic scale. Each set of Pinotage wines contained the same seven wines (unknown to the subjects) but were presented in a randomized order: The first set were presented without any information. Respondents had to indicate liking based purely on taste The second set were paired with different expert opinions. The expert opinions ranged in strength from a bad review to a gold medal The third set were presented with each wine’s total packaging. Wines that received a medal in the expert opinions setting had the medal displayed on the wine bottle.

In 2015, this wine was one of the Top 20 South African Pinotage wines Vintage Expert opinion Positive/ negative Price/ bottle* W1 2014 In 2015, this wine was one of the Top 20 South African Pinotage wines ++ R 155,00 W2 2013 + R 90,00 W3 Wine Enthusiast Magazine writes about this Pinotage: "Red plum & cherry aromas struggle to overcome notes of rubber and wet forest floor. Light weight with soft tannins and a short finish." - 84 points -- R 60,00 W4 R 124,00 W5 R 29,00 W6 R 46,00 W7 Simon Woods writes about this Pinotage: "Classic pinotage characters of spice-infused berries and bananas, along with notes of chocolate. There's also a savoury tomato note in there too, alongside some (not unpleasant) rustig iron-like notes. Very enjoyable stuff, with a brawny, earthy honesty." - 87 points -/+

Results A preliminary analysis of the results of the blind tasting of the Pinotage wines presented some interesting results: On average, all the wines were liked slightly. However, participants appeared to prefer the taste of the cheaper wines These findings are in line with previous findings that average novice wine drinkers in blind tastings prefer less expensive wines over more expensive wines.

Results In the blind tasting Liking of wine 4 is significantly lower than the other wines Wine 5 was liked significantly more than wine 1, wine 2, wine 4 and wine 6. However, wine 5 did not differ significantly from wine 3 and wine 7

Results Results from the expert opinion tasting suggest that expert opinions will positively influence the hedonic liking of Pinotage when the expert opinion is very positive (e.g. gold medal) and the wine is not preferred when tasted blind! Positive expert opinions do not seem to increase hedonic liking even more when the taste of the wine is originally liked when tasted blind.

Results Participants tend to rate the wines significantly higher when there is information available on the wine, regardless of what information

Results The packaging tasting produced similar results: When the packaging of the wine shows a medal and the wine is not liked when tasted blind, the perceived quality increases significantly. However, packaging seemed to slightly offset the influence of the expert opinions for some wines. Results do not confirm if this is the effect of the packaging itself or the brand perception that has an influence. No differences were found between the hedonic liking of low and high involved Millennials.

Results In general, no significant differences in liking for the three involvement levels in the different tasting sessions LI and HI participants also rate the wines significantly higher when there is information available on the wine, regardless of information provided Liking scores for MI participants do not significantly differ in the three sessions

Results However, results show some significant differences between male and female Millennials. In general, female Millennials rate the liking of Pinotage significantly lower than male Millennials in the blind tasting According to previous studies women are able to pick up more subtleties in wine compared to men. Therefore, women often prefer subtle white wines over red wines with dry tannin astringency and bitterness. This could explain the tendency for female Millennials to rate Pinotage significantly lower than male Millennials when tasting blind. However, while male Millennials do not seem to be strongly influenced by expert opinions or packaging, female Millennials are highly influenced by both. If the information provided is positive, female Millennials will increase their hedonic liking score for the wine.

Results Women rate the wines in the blind session significantly lower than men Women tend to rate the wines significantly higher when there is information available on the wine

Follow-up Focus on The credibility of different expert opinions Not clear if the effect of packaging is related to the packaging itself or the brand perception of this wine: investigate this further. Repeat the study with a bigger focus on level of involvement Investigate the influential strength of each type of expert opinion for female Millennials