To captivate the majority of consumers, winemakers should pay as much attention to the label on the bottle as they do to the contents inside.
A three-part experimental study conducted by Washington State University researchers revealed that women were more likely to purchase wine with labels featuring feminine gender cues. The study also found that women who strongly identified with other women were even more influenced by these feminine labels, leading them to anticipate liking the wine more.
With women making up 59% of U.S. wine consumers, the male-dominated field of winemaking should take note of the perceptions of this often overlooked demographic, as suggested by Ruiying Cai, lead author of the paper in the International Journal of Hospitality Management.
“When you look at the market segments, women are actually purchasing a lot of wine. They are a large group,” said Cai, an assistant professor with WSU’s Carson College of Business. “We found that feminine cues speak to women consumers. They have more favorable attitudes toward the label and the wine itself. They were also expecting their overall sensory experience to be better, and they were more likely to purchase the wine.”
Gender cues in wine labeling have a significant impact on consumer perception. In a recent study, 90 women participated in initial tests, rating wine labels as more masculine when featuring rugged animals like wolves and stags, as well as portraits of men. Conversely, labels with cute animals, flowers, and female portraits were designated as feminine, while those with castles and bunches of grapes were seen as neutral.
Subsequent online experiments involving 324 women further validated these findings. Participants showed a higher intention to purchase wines with feminine labels, such as those depicting women holding flowers, compared to wines with more masculine imagery, such as a bulldog in a spiked collar. Interestingly, when asked about the expected sensory experience, participants rated their liking of every sensory aspect higher, including color, taste, aroma, and aftertaste when presented with the feminine-labeled wines.
Furthermore, the participant’s level of wine expertise was found to moderate their taste expectations but surprisingly not their purchase intentions. These findings underscore the powerful influence of gendered cues on consumer behavior and highlight the potential for strategic wine marketing.
“Whether they were knowledgeable or less knowledgeable about wine when they saw those feminine cues, they had a higher intention to buy the wine. The gender cue influence was so strong, it trumped the effect of that knowledge,” said co-author Christina Chi, a professor at WSU’s Carson College of Business.
In an experiment involving 138 women, researchers uncovered a surprising revelation during a taste test. They provided bottles of the same red wine with either a feminine or masculine label. The women who tasted the feminine-labeled wine rated it higher in fruit flavors such as red currant and blueberry, despite these flavors not being dominant in that particular wine. On the other hand, women associated more mineral flavors with masculine-labeled wine.
Remarkably, the participants who tasted the feminine-labeled wine reported liking it less than those who tasted the masculine-labeled wines. The authors suggested that this could be due to the disparity between the expected flavor influenced by the feminine label and the actual taste of the wine sample, which had a medium body, tannin, and alcohol level.
This study sheds light on the perceptions of women wine consumers in an industry where 82% of the winemakers are men. The lack of female perspective is evident in wine aisles, with many vintners favoring masculine imagery like stallions, bulls, and roosters. One brand even features a prisoner in a jail cell. This thought-provoking research underscores the need for a more inclusive and diverse approach to wine marketing and labeling.
“When designing the labels, winemakers should involve more women in the process, and it’s highly advisable to pilot test the labels among consumers for gender cues,” she said.
Journal reference:
- Ruiying Cai, Demi Shenrui Deng, Christina Geng-qing Chi, Robert J. Harrington. The eyes have it: How do gender cues in wine labels influence U.S. women wine consumers? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2024; DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2024.103930