The knowledge of Italian wines on export markets: A nonparametric methodology to analyze promotional actions

The European Union (EU) has strongly rearranged the management of EU wine policy by introducing actions for promoting wine in third countries. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate factors affecting the knowledge of Italian wines in foreign consumers, i.e., to what extend wine promotion actions can improve the consumer’s awareness or the reputation of Italian wines. As a consequence, these activities may increase the wine consumption as well as wine exports in emerging markets.

Data have been collected through survey questionnaires where information about wine tasting, sensory satisfaction and preferences about Italian wines have been collected. The sample survey collects preferences of wine market operators in both EU and third countries. The survey, carried out from 2009 to 2011, includes 3,579 interviews classified according to four promotion actions: press conference, wine tasting, tasting course, knowledge of Italian wines. Data have been analyzed through a nonparametric combination (NPC) of dependent permutation tests to evaluate differences between and within country groups and to assess the consumer perception about Italian wines through the Keller’s model.

So far, Italian wine promotion activities, supported by EU wine policy, are fragmented among in many small and sometimes low effective actions. Research results may be helpful in designing more effective promotional strategies on third countries. In particular, promotional activities which should be focussed on consumer’s appreciation of Italian wines as a brand instead of promoting specific wines or wineries.

The NPC method is a nonparametric tool which does not measure the structure of consumer’s preferences, i.e, it does give any measure of relationships among consumer’s utility and factors affecting it as it happens when a modeling approach is applied.

Targeted promotion and information actions strongly focussed internal and external wine attributes can increase the level of knowledge in foreign consumers. It can make more efficient the marketing activity oriented to the export market.

The NPC method offers an innovative, flexible and well-tested approach for the analysis of multivariate hypothesis when we are dealing with complex problems in wine market.