Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 15501555

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

The (r)evolution of wine marketing mix: From the 4Ps to the 4Es
Giuseppe Festa a,, Maria Teresa Cuomo b,1, Gerardino Metallo b,2, Antonio Festa c,3
a
b
c

Department of Business Studies and Research (Management and Information Technology), University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II-132, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Department of Business Studies and Research (Management & Information Technology), University of Salerno, Italy
Department of Computer Science, University of Salerno, Italy

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 1 February 2015
Received in revised form 1 June 2015
Accepted 1 September 2015
Available online 2 November 2015
Keywords:
Wine marketing
Marketing mix
Consumer purchase behavior
Knowledge
Sommelier language

a b s t r a c t
Recently, the wine sector is developing very interesting market dynamics, both for old-world countries (as
regards wine) and new world ones. Furthermore, old-world countries still have a product orientation, whereas
new-world ones have a market orientation. Starting from the 4Ps model (product, price, promotion, and
place), this study develops a theoretical framework specically for wine-marketing mix. This study draws on a
literature review on marketing mix variablesand the role of knowledge in consumer purchase behaviorto
propose the 4Es formula (expertise, evaluation, education, and experience) based on a certain knowledge of
the consumer/taster. Thus, an experimental marketing action applies the concept of wine marketing mix, according to the 4Es model, to a panel of consumers. The results, although with some limitations, support the relevant
contribution of knowledge to the wine-marketing mix.
2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Recently, wine is one of the most dynamic markets in the world
economy, for both the old-world countries of wine (Italy, France,
Spain, and other European nations) and the new-world ones (USA,
Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, to name a
few). Furthermore, although the world production produces different
volumes yearly, with considerable differences from one harvest to another, world consumption is consistently inferior to world production
(OIV, 2015), forcing wine-marketing managers to face continuous problems of market growth and development.
In the most developed economic systems, recently suffering from
serious nancial crises, the most traditional sectors (agriculture,
manufacturing, etc.) have interesting reactions to current difculties, particularly, considering sectors as distinctive factors. In the
Italian case, for example, the food industry and the wine sector are
showing a positive trend, in contrast with the economy in general.
For the wine sector, although the debate is still in progress (Anderson,
2004; Bisson, Waterhouse, Ebeler, Walker, & Lapsley, 2002; Lecocq &

The authors thank Angelo Di Gregorio, University of Milan Bicocca, Philip Kitchen,
ESC Rennes School of Business, and the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading
and suggestions.
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: gfesta@unisa.it (G. Festa), mcuomo@unisa.it (M.T. Cuomo),
gemetall@unisa.it (G. Metallo), winebusiness@unisa.it (A. Festa).
1
Tel.: +39 089 963008; fax: +39 089 963505.
2
Tel.: +39 089 963127; fax: +39 089 963505.
3
Tel.: +39 089 963119; fax: +39 089 963505.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.10.015
0148-2963/ 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Visser, 2006; Shamel & Anderson, 2003), a certain consensus exists on

the fact that old-world countries still focus primarily on production,
whereas new-world countries seem to focus on marketing and sales
(Remaud & Couderc, 2006; Resnick, 2008). Wine tourism seemingly
shares this trait (Getz, Carlsen, Brown, & Havitz, 2008), and wine marketing, because of the commercial success of the new world, works as an essential engine for entrepreneurial innovation.
2. Research aim
The 4Ps (product, price, promotion, and place) constitute the traditional theoretical framework to implement the operational phase of
the marketing-management process (McCarthy, 1960). This conceptual
articulation is robust (as regards methodology) and versatile (as regards
application), because every sector/market can use 4Ps, although with
some contextualization: for example, service marketing adopts the
4Cs by Lauterborn (1990).
The synthetic literature review appearing in Fig. 1 reconstructs an
evolution of different marketing-mix formulas, offering a specic combination of levers for the very fascinating (Anderson, 2004, p. 3) sector
of the wine business. In this analysis, the marketing-mix focus seems to
shift gradually, from tangible assets to intangible assets, and from the
good as container of utilities (Berkowitz, Kerin, & Rudelius, 1989) to
the customer as subject of experience (Pine & Gilmore, 1998). These
new focuses confer a broad plausibility to a possible study on marketing
mix in which the customer experience may nd a reasonable evolution
according to the knowledge that the customer can carry, apply, and
develop.

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one of the most authoritative knowledge bases about wine, and the acquisition of this language can generate valuable awareness about wine
(Cleveland, Larocheb, & Papadopoulos, 2015). The experiment aims to
check that wine consumer acculturation about essential concepts of
tasting can be a source of great commercial potentiality for wine.

4. The experimental investigation

Fig. 1. A synthetic review of marketing mix formulas.

Starting from the 4Ps model, this study aims to develop a theoretical structure for a contextualized version of wine marketing mix,
based on 4Es (expertise, evaluation, education, and experience),
with knowledge performing the role of glue, facilitator, and amplier. Furthermore, notwithstanding cultural differences such as language, the 4Es framework may explain a considerable knowledge
potentiality also as a global marketing tool, at least in terms of international communication. Such potentiality owes to the indispensable character of wine internationalization, especially for countries
with a steady reduction in domestic demand and/or an attractive
quality/price ratio.
In the case of wine, a progressively deeper knowledge on the part of
consumers could allow a better understanding (product as expertise)
and appreciation of the utility of the product (wine), not only in terms
of money, but in a more general judgment (price as evaluation). Accordingly, this effect could result in a better contextualization of product
perception to present/future occasions of consumption (promotion as
education), consequently enriching the purchase situation (place as
experience).
In other studies, wine promotion through knowledge has a person different from the consumer as the originator (for example, a
professional sommelier: Chocarro & Cortias, 2013; Dewald, 2008;
Manske & Cordua, 2005), whereas this study analyzes the opportunity of wine promotion through knowledge (particularly, a sommelier
knowledge) in the consumer. Moving from these considerations, the
fundamental research question for this exploratory research is the
following.
RQ: Is a new concept of marketing mix, based on knowledge and articulated in 4Es (expertise, evaluation, education, and experience), useful in promoting better to actual and potential consumers the real value
of a specic wine?

Pellicano, Ciasullo, and Festa (2015), in a systemic analysis of wine

tourism, retrieve previous studies in which the evolution of the wine
consumer up to taster is a possible path for the commercial development of wine markets (in that particular case, of the Italian
Way of Wine). According to that evolution, a larger/better knowledge about wine culture, starting with tasting, could contribute to
the success of wine-marketing mix. In this sense, the sommelier language may constitute the most appropriate reference point: In the
world of wine, other technical languages exist (e.g., oenologists),
but the sommelier language seems the most suitable for wine communication, because sommelier-language users are also ordinary
people, not necessarily professionals, and for the following reasons.
In particular, the educational path to become sommelier (according to the methodology of AISItalian Sommelier Association) requires a specic expertise in three levels: organoleptic analysis,
score evaluation, and pairing technique. In each of these domains,
the role of knowledge is clearly essential, in a combination that is
both theoretical (data, information, and skills) and practical (attitudes, feelings, and experiments).
The organoleptic analysis offers a greater knowledge on a wine
(productexpertise), while the score evaluation allows appreciating a
wine more accurately (priceevaluation). The technique of pairing
food and wine (or wine and food) also allows to express fully the usefulness of a wine (communicationeducation), and the place of purchase
and/or consumption (wine shop, wine bar, restaurant, supermarket, ecommerce, etc.) further qualies the overall experience. Complying
with this reasoning, Fig. 2 identies a possible combination of wine marketing mix articulated in 4Es.

3. Method
The hypothesis articulates wine-marketing mix in the 4Es, each
one based on the concept of knowledge. In this sense, an experimental marketing action builds on a survey that is both qualitative
(observation of participants' behavior in the marketing experiment)
and quantitative (measurement of specic variables of participants'
reactions to the marketing experiment) (Annett & Kondrak, 2008),
along a unique research track (composite in the articulation and homogeneous in the nalization).
The experiment draws methodologically from experimental economics (Chamberlin, 1948; Plott, 1991; Rubinstein, 2001); this study
adapts that methodology to experimental marketing. The experiment
comprised a panel of consumers (10 individuals), and consisted of a
workshop as an approach to the wine culture, using the sommeliers'
language (according to the methodology of AISItalian Sommelier Association, the largest in the world). Sommeliers' language is diffusely

MARKETING MIX

( WINE ) MARKETING MIX

Fig. 2. A reconsideration of the (wine) marketing mix.

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G. Festa et al. / Journal of Business Research 69 (2016) 15501555

To test this research intuition, the experimental marketing action consists of a panel of consumers participating in a workshop
for approaching the wine culture using the sommelier language: because of the very nature of the experiment, consisting of a training
seminar at an introductory level, the number of participants has a
limit of 10.
Attendees' selection was randomto enhance the surveyafter an
appeal launched on the Facebook virtual community of the Postgraduate Course in Wine Business of the University of Salerno (Italy). The participants, at the time of the experiment, possessed the following
characteristics: adult, non-teetotaler, and without knowledge in the
eld of technical wine tasting.
Firstly, a professional sommelier served the participants a blind
white wine in the wine glass: each participant can interact with the
wine in a completely free manner, asking for further tasting, lling in
the questionnaire (in Appendix A) without any recommendation, but
with total scrupulousness (the questionnaire had been previously submitted to some researchers, winemakers, and sommeliers for an internal validation).
After completing the questionnaire (rst survey), participants
attended a training session (the trainer was a third-level sommelier,
and marketing director of the Italian Sommelier Association in Campania) on the three levels of the sommelier language: organoleptic analysis, score evaluation, and pairing technique. After the 1.5 h seminar, and
after a short break, the participants receive the same questionnaire to
detect any effects of the experimental-training action (second survey),
together with a second tasting of the same wine: even in this second
time, the tasting is blind (only at the end of the second survey the participants received all the information regarding the wine of that specic
tasting).
Given the simplicity of the information, the data resulting from
the rst and the second survey constitutes a database created with
an ofce automation software for subsequent content analysis and
statistical processing: the difference between the two observations
should provide the results of the experiment (with a sufcient reliability, because of the lack of additional variables), in terms of
measurement of the effects of the training seminar. Additional primary data resulting from the experiment were the qualitative observations that an observer collects during the entire training
session.

5. Results, limitations, and implications

Different results emerge from the experimental intervention.
Firstly, in terms of classication, almost all participants generally
consume bottled wine (only one consumes bulk wine generally), a
circumstance which supports the research, because bulk wine is by
denition less appropriate for tasting, and a common nutrition element. Participants' wine consumption is frequent, with only three
subjects consuming wine rather sporadically; this is a further element of support of the adequacy of the panel, because all the subjects, even without the technical knowledge about tasting, are
already wine consumers and in a certain sense experienced (i.e.
not unsophisticated).
Secondly, as regards the quantitative effects of the experimental action, evidence conrms the research intuition: a wine-marketing mix
based on 4Es, which derives from the knowledge of the sommelier language, can be an implementable model for promoting wine successfully
on markets. However, some limitations derive from the small number of
participants. In particular, the second survey allows the evaluation of
the following effects:

20% more as concerns the wine appreciation;

50% more as concerns the wine overall assessment;

30% more as concerns the potential purchase intentions;

40% more as concerns the wine positioning in terms of price range.
Open-ended comments improve, both quantitatively and qualitatively, because the participants, after the experimental action,
show:
less difculty in answering the questionnaire (especially the openended questions);
greater condence in the wine analysis (starting for example with
the correct grip of the wine glass); and, more generally,
a more natural interaction with tasting.

Overall, the experimental-training action approaching wine culture from the perspective of the sommelier language seems to generate encouraging effects as regards this research; however, the main
limitation of the study resides in the small number of participants
(i.e., 10), which cannot allow the generalization of a denitive result.
Future research developments could include at least two possible
insights.
Firstly, the greater or lesser ability of the instructor constitutes a
signicant moderating/distorting variable and, therefore, studies
might conduct the same experiment with a different trainer. Secondly, the experimental investigation reveals a positive change in wine
appreciation (consistent with the research intention); however, analyzing also the cost/benet ratio of an educational action on the part
of the winery could help to evaluate the investment elasticity
(i.e., the ratio between the percentage of increase in the wine appreciation and the percentage of increase in communication costs to
divulgate the tasting techniques).
In terms of possible scientic implications, the study is a rst
step in reconsidering wine-marketing mix in terms of knowledge
diffusion, evolving from the educational marketing of the specic
product to the educational marketing of the product as such, almost
from a social-marketing viewpoint spreading (wine) culture to inspire behaviors that are good, because customers are increasingly
aware. In terms of possible managerial implications, the investment
in the dissemination of (essential) skills of the tasting technique can
be an encouragement, potentially very interesting for the development of the perception of the wine-value proposition; however,
such a communication investment may also increase the indelity
of the consumer, who would have a better formation on wine
knowledge and therefore a potentially greater curiosity about
other wine experiences. In any case, this investment would be a remarkably effective path to communicate at best the authentic characteristics of the wine object of the single business proposal
(Beverland, 2006).
6. Conclusion
This study contributes to wine marketing, in particular to the marketing mix. A remake of the 4Ps model is possible in the case of wine
marketing mix as 4Es (expertise, evaluation, experience, and education), building on different levels of knowledge of the sommelier language, which is a very powerful tool for a better communication of
wine culture.
The results from the experiment conrm the plausibility of the research intuition, but the limitations of the nature of the experiment require subsequent studies to obtain a more robust statistical reliability.
Nevertheless, the intense marketing orientation inherent in the 4Es formula for wine marketing mix seems to assist the wine consumer in the
personal development of her/his identity as taster, allowing great
opportunities for the commercial success of the product (wine) and especially for the institutional success of the brand (winery) on wine
markets.

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Appendix A

(continued).

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