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Women more likely to choose a bottle of wine if label is feminine, study shows
Washington State University researchers recently found that women are more likely to purchase a bottle of wine if the label bears feminine imagery.
It might be bad for us, it might be a common cancer risk, but alcohol is a huge part of modern-day life, hence the yearly Dry January. That being said, some people shouldn’t be drinking, with a doctor earlier revealing why.
Women loved feminine gender cues on their wine bottle
Wine has been a major part of human civilization since ancient times, with everyone from the Greeks to the Romans enjoying a glass through complicated brewing techniques.
Despite 59% of US wine consumers being women, the winemaking industry predominantly comprises men. With that in mind, study lead Ruiying Cai hoped to delve into what makes a bottle of wine appealing to women. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management this week.
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 WSUs 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.
Admittedly, a lot of gender cues are built upon stereotypes that women have worked tirelessly to unravel over the years. Nonetheless, there is a scientific basis for such stereotypes.
For instance, a study group of 90 women rated wine labels as more masculine when they featured animals like wolves and stags or portraits of men. In contrast, women designated the wine as feminine when it featured images of flowers and female portraits and neutral when showing imagery like castles and bunches of grapes.
Another group of 324 women was asked to choose a fictional bottle of wine, with women showing a higher interest in purchasing the wine when the bottle featured feminine imagery. Interestingly, they also claimed the feminine bottles tasted better.
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 third experiment saw participants taste identical wines in either masculine or feminine presenting bottles. As you might expect, they ranked what they perceived as the feminine bottle as higher.
Winemaking needs more women
If that study showed anything it is that the winemaking industry is in desperate need of a woman’s touch. Not only could it potentially drive further sales, but it would also be more representative of the industry’s biggest customer base.
When designing the labels, winemakers should involve more women in the process, and its highly advisable to pilot test the labels among consumers for gender cues, Christina Chi said.
As the world battles against the overconsumption of alcohol, with studies already suggesting reducing the size of a pint, the Washington State University study could pose further ideas for cutting back on booze spending.
