Evaluating Sources

Prompt #6
By: Jake

Through the Michigan State University library system I was recently able to find a book titled "Successful Wine Marketing" by Kirby Moulton and James Lapsley. This textbook stood out to me as it intrigues both hospitality business majors and marketing majors. The book was published in 2001 and is intended to give the ins and outs of the wine business while showing people how to be successful within the industry.

Throughout this post keep in mind I am a college student with little to no wine experience, but the subject intrigued me and I was interested to see how it related to marketing. That being said, in the introduction chapter of the book there is a section titled "Consumer Classification" which I found very interesting. Consumer Classification is a very new topic to me. Surprisingly I have not had much experience with classification in my previous classes. In this section Moulton essentially argues that the 55-60% of adults in the US that drink alcohol  can be classified into four subgroups: Connoisseurs, Aspirants, Newcomers, and Simple Drinkers. According to the textbook, these subgroups account for about 5, 45, 35, and 15% of the population respectively. 

I generally agree with the classifications the book gives. Although I do not have enough experience to give regard to the percentages, I like each classification. Connoisseurs are essentially wine snobs who are conscious of quality and stand out to producers. Aspirants are curious and open-minded about wine but are not familiar or experienced at all. Newcomers are generally uninterested and just take advice when given it, and Simple Drinkers just consume wine out of tradition or custom. Thinking about the adults and wine-consumers that I know, generally everyone falls into one of these four categories. 

Another interesting point that the book makes is the outlook of the classification. Moulton argues that even though only 5% of consumers are actually knowledgeable of wine and demand it extensively, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Because of the mass amount of consumers that are interested in or at least like wine, there is an extreme possibility for growth in the wine industry.  One point the book makes is that about 80% of consumers are waiting for a efficient and relevant message which producers should be able to easily capitalize off of. Based off of the earlier classification I do not believe this to be accurate. 

Taking it at face value I disagree that 80% of our earlier classified market would react well to a brand message like that. Connoisseurs and Aspirants would likely respond well, but Newcomers and Simple Drinkers would disregard these messages. Furthermore, I doubt all of the Aspirants would respond like the book states. Even for those that are very interested in wine and are ready to experiment I only believe about half would favor a new promotion or marketing strategy like this. 

Based on my new calculation based on my perception of the consumer market, only about 30-50% of alcohol consumers max factor into the potential of growth that the textbook talks about. After taking the earlier statistic of alcohol consumers in the United States into account this only correlates to about 18-30% of all consumers. Regardless of the fact that this is at least 50% less than the book calculated, there is still a significant growth outlook for the wine industry, I just do not see it growing as rapidly as the book expects or hopes.  


Works Cited

Moulton, Kirby S., and James T. Lapsley. Successful wine marketing. New York: Springer, 2006. Print.