Wine study: How Experiential Marketing is Increasing Engagement and Brand Purchase
By: Irena Semenic
Tags: Marketing, Communication, Wineries, Wine, Community Engagement

Wine study: How Experiential Marketing is Increasing Engagement and Brand Purchase

The education sector has Open Days that offer school tours which showcase their brand and invites future students to interact.

The same for the hospitality sector holding events such as dinners and charity events.

For the wine and spirits industry these type of events bear even more weight as they are proven to be highly influential on customers perception of brand and willingness to purchase.

Photo by bruce mars from Pexels

For wineries these events are: degustations, expositions, picnic at the winery, silent auction with food and wine, dinner with the winemakers…

Brand Marketing Events, BME’s from now on, are events with brand related interactive experiences to increase customer engagement with the brand.

The primary purpose of these events is to provide the customer with a meaningful venue for interacting with the brand in order to develop a deeper and more meaningful brand connection.

Not the same as sponsorships

Acting as a sponsoring brand will generally result in lack control over event operation and distribution of brand related information. It in fact can be to the detriment of each sponsor, as the event becomes cluttered with conflicting brand messages and or is completely overshadowed by the event itself.¹

Biggest bang for your buck

In contrast, in brand marketing or promotional events the brand is the central focus and the message can be tailored to emphasize the selling points such as use of blend, a particular vintage, manner of consumption.…

Basically, you will have more control over influencing customer attitudes, you can create an experience relevant to them and avoid having passive customers.

Another benefit is the data received from executing such an event that can be used for email newsletters or invitations to the winery special guest list and general updates about the winery.

Keeping it local will also positively affect the community and increase word of mouth recommendations, which honestly comes in handy during the peak tourist seasons.

Psychological connection

You need to create an experience that is relevant to the customer and that will establish a positive association with your brand. To create that deep psychological connection with the brand you should use a mix of experiential components tailored to your public.

Community management

Findings suggest that the impact of BMEs on customer engagement are dependent on culture-specific preferences, in other words, if a brand is operating internationally it should adapt depending on market and the nature of its consumers. It is necessary to look at the underlying consumer profile, their attitude to the product and what they are likely to need from marketing activities.

Address the right Consumers needs

This study compared Australian wineries and French wineries, so let us take a look at how they differ.

Australian wine enthusiasts

The study found that the strongest impact on customer engagement is through cognitive experience, followed by sensorial experience, and relational experience.

Emotional experience and pragmatic experience were not significant factors to achieve engagement.

What this all means is that Australian consumers are more engaged in a relaxed environment with food or music while interacting with others to acquire knowledge in oenology in a social context.

Managers should increase their understanding of engagement and provide cognitive experiences when marketing in the Australian wine market.

Australian wineries should also consider placing greater emphasis on cognitive and sensorial components while serving wine.

French wine enthusiasts

Findings suggest that French customers engage with the brand if they have participated in a pragmatic experience.

French consumers do not respond to experiences that are cognitive, emotional, sensorial, or relational in nature.

This is mostly due to French strong wine culture that transcends to the consumer.

Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash

French wineries are advised to provide events with a strong pragmatic experience. The consumers mostly need a physically interactive experience such as “create your own label”, tours for hand picking grapes or other “hands on” exercises to facilitate further brand engagement.

The outcome of the study also suggest that BME’s positive brand purchase intentions are proven stronger for Australian customers than for French customers.