The wine industry is no stranger to the use of data in making vineyard and cellar decisions, and market research data is critical for brand positioning and sales/marketing planning. Research companies like Wine Opinions provide data and analysis gathered from quantitative surveys of U.S. wine consumers or the wine trade for wine marketing companies, wine trade associations, and wineries large and small. Wine Opinions has performed this service for our clients over the past 11 years.
Recently, we have added capabilities to our research services, allowing Wine Opinions clients to source consumer survey respondents from the Wine.com customer database (selecting respondents with specific brand purchase history) and trade survey respondents from the database of SevenFifty.com.
We have also been pleased to see new data sources appearing which are of great interest to both wine market researchers and brand owners. These are streams of “big data” based on consumer behaviors measured mainly by the usage of apps downloaded to mobile devices.
Two examples getting attention recently are well worth noting by anyone interested in learning more about U.S. wine consumer behavior. The first of these is from Enolytics, an Atlanta-based firm dedicated to “bringing the power of big data to the wine industry.” While they are a new firm, they are off to a very good start. Enolytics partnered with Hello Vino, a leading app for wine shoppers, on a project that focused on consumer search and shopping activities, including a number of factors such as day of the week, time of day, season of the year, and major U.S. markets. The result is a report entitled “When is Wine O’Clock?” which is certainly of interest to wine marketers.
Another report was recently released by Vivino, a wine shopping and information app of some importance. In May, 2016, Vivino published a report based on a survey of their users’ wine drinking habits, with a focus on when and where they are most likely to be enjoying wine. As with the Enolytics and Hello Vino report, the findings are certainly of interest.
In a recent survey of 1,072 high frequency wine drinkers, Wine Opinions asked respondents to indicate (from a list) which wine apps they used on a weekly or more often basis. Among the wine shopping apps, Vivino was the top choice (9.6% of respondents citing weekly or more often usage). And while this is not an overwhelming number, it is nonetheless significant, and the popularity and usage of wine shopping, information, delivery service, and other such apps continues to grow at an impressive rate. “Big data” offers wine marketers a new and vast opportunity to target wine drinkers and fine-tune marketing initiatives. It is certainly a welcome addition as a source of information and knowledge.