Customers are influenced by many factors during their purchases, so the idea is to capture those in order to use them as an advantage. Wine is not only about varieties and tastes but also about social allegiance, prestige and image. Wine is a message; the German people willing to pay a price premium for a bottle of Swiss wine want to give a message. In order to better capture customer needs, influences and goals, the target group will be approached on the demographic, psychographic and sociographic aspects.
Strategic marketing recommendations will follow and conclude this point 1.5.4.
Demographics
The potential customer for Uvavins’ products will be situated in the age group 25-54 years old. This group represents slightly more than 40% of the population and is composed of 17 million males and almost an equivalent number of females.
The customer are living in major cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne or
A strategy to export Swiss wine to Germany: the case of Uvavins-Cave de La Côte 41 RATTAZ Matthieu
The price factor is very important in the wine industry in general but especially for a small and new market player distributing wine from Switzerland, so Uvavins has to target people with higher education that are more likely to have higher incomes.
The gender is a crucial factor to consider as well, the buying and drinking habits differ a lot from women to men. Wine colour, packaging, price or even winery size will be more or less important in the eyes of women and men. For example in the US, women represent 59% of regular wine purchasers and women in Germany buy seven bottles out of ten sold. The rise in influence of women winemakers is playing a role in the
“feminisation” of wine (Robinson, 2014).
Psychographics
A population can be divided into groups based on the occupation of the Chief Income Earner (CIE). Uvavins will be in a niche market focusing on the higher social grades16such as A and B, respectively the higher managerial, administrative or professional and the intermediate managerial, administrative or professional (Tutor, 2015). Uvavins will be traditional and exclusive and will respond to the corresponding values and needs with customers looking for a unique product that is not accessible to everyone.
The lifestyles, which correspond best to Uvavins’ customers are the “Aspirer” and the
“Explorer”. The Aspirer is a materialistic and acquisitive person, who is orientated towards image, appearance and fashion. The packaging will play a bigger role for these customers than for the others. The Explorer is looking for autonomy, experience and new frontiers. This lifestyle is generally for younger generations, for which the brand choice will highlight a difference (Tutor, 2015).
Sociographics
The idea behind sociographic segmentation is to understand the different influences on the customers. For example, the cultural influences will not differ a lot from the one in Switzerland because institutions like family, religion or education are quite similar.
Again, the social class will strongly influence the buying behaviour. By targeting the middle-upper and upper-upper classes, the products may have to be, for example, re-labelled especially to provide certain information.
16 Grades go from A to E (A being the highest and E the lowest).
The goal is to have people perceiving Swiss wine as an exceptional product, so people looking for exception might have different expectations about the bottles, the label design or the information on the labels. This is something to consider for Uvavins, which has anyway to go through a re-labelling process to export the wine.
Finally, the influence of reference groups is very important with direct impact on the attitude, values and behaviour. People are influenced by the group to which they belong or aspire to belong (Nyandat, 2013). This is very interesting to understand where the influence comes from for Uvavins because the company will deal with a limited number of customers and the word of mouth is a crucial asset. Gathering potential customers with the right profile may be a way for the company to create a reference group and insist on the fact that these people are exceptional.
Strategic recommendations
From the above analysis of the customers’ profile, the following points should be remembered when building the new export strategy:
• Women have a significant role in the purchasing process, so the company should differentiate its messages and promotion campaigns from a gender to the other. Women may be sensitive to different factors and, for example, more attentive with a woman winemaker or even salesperson. On top of that, women do appreciate certain varieties and Uvavins should take it into account.
• The design of the bottles, labels and packaging in general is determinant for many wine lovers. The Aspirer lifestyle is influenced by packaging and, more importantly, a specific design may be required for fit the social classes’ standard. People from middle- to upper-upper classes might be more careful about prizes, distinction, symbols, and exclusivity. Watch making companies have the habit of numbering the watches and even when there are thousands of them. Uvavins could easily play with that and introduce the numbers on bottles, just to create the feeling of exclusivity.
• On top of being younger, the Explorer lifestyle is generally the first to try new brands, so these are two major characteristics that make this group
A strategy to export Swiss wine to Germany: the case of Uvavins-Cave de La Côte 43 RATTAZ Matthieu
• Attracting younger generations is important to build customer loyalty and diversify the customers’ range. Then, this will be easier to introduce a wine to people willing to explore new products and brands.
• Income classes and urban areas appeared several times in the analysis, so Uvavins could select its sales points according to those factors. If the company keeps working with a single employee, a strategic selection of cities seems mandatory. There are important inequalities of GDP between the sixteen German states; five of them account for about 70%
of total GPD (North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Lower Saxony and Hesse). Therefore Uvavins could focus on the major cities in these states and even select them according to their proximity.
According to the above criteria of selection, the cities would be Cologne, Düsseldorf, Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe.
• The creation of events or a club should be in Uvavins’ pipeline in order to educate its potential customers about Swiss wine and emphasize on the fact that membership is required in order to be part of the happy few. It joins the concept of exclusivity.