The knowledge of Italian wines on export markets: a non parametric methodology to analyze promotional actions

This paper evaluates factors affecting the knowledge of Italian wines in foreign consumers, i.e., to what extend wine promotion actions can improve the consumer's awareness or the reputation of Italian wines. As a consequence, these activities may increase the wine consumption as well as wine exports in emerging markets. Data have been collected through survey questionnaires where information about wine tasting, sensory satisfaction and preferences about Italian wines have been collected. The sample survey collects preferences of wine market operators in both EU and third countries. The survey, carried out from 2009 to 2011, includes 3.579 interviews classified according to four promotion actions: press conference, wine tasting, tasting course, knowledge of Italian wines. Data have been analyzed through a nonparametric combination of dependent permutation tests (NPC) to evaluate differences between and within country groups and to assess the consumer perception about Italian wines through the Keller's model. These results seems to confirm that building the quality concept in consumer's mind is an ongoing process, which can be referred as a "learning by tasting" one, and it can be strengthened by experimenting consumption directly.