Who likes it “sparkling”? An empirical analysis of Prosecco consumers’ profile

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to understand the profile (if any) of the typical Prosecco wine consumer, for both Controlled Denomination of Origin (CDO) and Controlled and Guaranteed Denomination of Origin (CGDO) types, with a twofold objective. First, the study aims at contributing to the economics literature dealing with opening the "black box of preferences" and understanding consumers' behavior. Second, more practically, the study aims to advise producers on the design of more targeted industrial strategies and policies. Using Homescan data collected from large-scale retail trade transactions in the period 2009-2011, we adopt a probit model and test a set of simple relationships between the probability that Prosecco (in both Geographical Indications) is purchased and selected consumers' socio-economic characteristics and product attributes. The results allow us to draft a profile of the typical consumer of Prosecco. The Prosecco CDO consumer lives in the North of Italy, is wealthy, relatively young, lives in a small (2-3 people) household and reacts to price changes. In addition to the latter feature, the typical Prosecco CGDO consumer has a preference for selected brands and extra-dry wine taste. Marginal effects are computed and predict that a 1% increase in Prosecco CDO price will decrease the probability that a consumer purchases the product by 0.36%. In addition, a 1% increase in Prosecco CGDO price will decrease the probability that a consumer purchases the product by 0.26%. The different sensitivity to price changes is corroborated by the fact that Prosecco CGDO consumers express a preference for the product characteristics (brand and taste) and might be more "loyal to the product" than Prosecco CDO purchasers. Further research will broaden the scale of analysis and adopt multinomial probit models in order to simultaneously assess the profile of different consumers for other types of sparkling wines, including Champagne and Franciacorta.

Price Determinants of Sparkling Wine in Poland: Does Reputation Really Matter?

“…In this framework, Champagne has the greatest impact on price, but Prosecco DOCG, Prosecco DOC and the other Italian geographical indications, such as Trento, Franciacorta and Oltrepò Pavese, are also considered valued products, considerably increasing the price. As reported by Onofri et al [59], the different sensitivity to price variations is confirmed by the fact that consumers of Prosecco DOCG express a preference for the product characteristics (brand and taste). This can be explained by a greater "loyalty to the product" of the Prosecco DOCG consumers than the Prosecco DOC purchasers.…”

The Italian market of sparkling wines: Latent variable models for brand positioning, customer loyalty, and transitions across brands' preferences

“…They figured out consumer patterns and different WTP for Prosecco appellations. Onofri, Boatto, and Dal Bianco (2015) applied a probit regression model on homescan data, testing the relationships between the probability of purchasing Prosecco as the appellation and consumer features. Contini, Romano, Scozzafava, Boncinelli, and Casini (2015) employed an LC regression model to homescan data, evaluating mass trade retail strategies on consumer's preferences.…”

Determinants of Sicilian Wine Consumption: Evidence from a Binary Response Model

“…Analytically, the statistical model used for the analysis is a binary response model. This class of models is widely used in social sciences and in agricultural and food economics in particular for analyzing consumers choice behavior (Train, 2009;Verneau et al, 2014;Onofri et al, 2015). In this particular model the probability of an event (e.g., consumption of Sicilian wine) is a linear function of the explanatory variables.…”

“…The selection of the explanatory variables follows previous studies of consumers preferences for food products and for wine specifically (Verneau et al, 2014;Cembalo et al, 2014;Caracciolo et al, 2015;Onofri et al, 2015).…”

“…In recent years the increasing demand of the consumers for quality wines and regional brand in the international and domestic markets has been a relevant discussion topic among researchers (Orth et al, 2005;Bruwer and Johnson, 2010;Onofri et al, 2015;Dal Bianco et al, 2015). At the same time a significant interest of Italian consumers towards "certified" as well organic products, has been observed (Crescimanno et al, 2002;Di Vita et al, 2013a;Cembalo et al, 2014;Di Vita et al, 2014b).…”