I analysed current academic research on wine label effectiveness and defined two practical approaches for brand managers and designers to evaluate their current labels and create new ones.

1. MESSAGE ON
A BOTTLE:
STRATEGIES FOR
WINE BRANDING
Tommaso Minnetti
Regional Manager APAC, Export Union Italia

2. INTRODUCTION
HELLO.
Tommaso Minnetti
3 years experience in the Chinese
and Asian wine industry both
on the importer and exporter side.
WSET Level 3
Juror at Asia Wine Trophy
8 years advertising career
Associate Creative Director
at Ogilvy Milan
Lecturer at Istituto Europeo di Design
Recipient of the European Design Award
Juror at the Italian Art Director’s Club

3. INTRODUCTION
PRESENTATION OBJECTIVES
▸ For wine producers:
Provide a practical approach to wine label design
and range differentiation
▸ For wine importers and distributors:
Provide tools to judge wine labels and
assess their efficacy on target market segment

4. Consumers are intimidated by
wine purchases and doubt their
ability to choose the appropriate
wine for fear of social rejection.
Olsen et al., 2003
RESEARCH INSIGHT

5. An average US
supermarket will
carry 750 different
wines while a hard
discount store will
carry 150.

6. Wine consumers will use
risk reduction strategies
to decrease the likelihood
of making a bad choice
Rasmussen and Lockshin, 1999
RESEARCH INSIGHT

7. RESEARCH INSIGHT
RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
▸ Using price as a quality indicator
▸ Selecting a brand known for quality
▸ Relying upon a recommendation
▸ Developing advanced knowledge of the product category
▸ Match the occasion for which the wine is purchased
▸ Using the package and label design as quality cues
Spawton, 1991; Sherman and Tuten, 2011

8. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
SELECTING A
BRAND KNOWN
FOR QUALITY
▸ No wine brand has market share
greater than 4 percent.
(Sherman and Tuten, 2011)
▸ In 2014, media spend for wine
brands was only 7% of that for beer
(Nielsen AdViews)
▸ Pre-selling' wines in a retail
environment by conducting
expensive advertising campaigns
is not cost-effective
(Solomon et al., 2010)
Iconic brands dominate certain
categories, unlike in wine

9. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
RELYING UPON A
RECOMMENDATION
Order of relevance for consumers:
▸ Wine type
▸ Price
▸ Familiarity
▸ Label appeal
▸ Country of origin
▸ Wine critic score
(Sherman and Tuten, 2011)
Sorry Robert, but scores are the
least relevant for consumers

10. Consumers seek out wine labels when
choosing wine by going through retail
aisles of wine, rather than seeking
guidance from wine guides, reviews,
advertising or from employees
at specialised wine shops which
are generally wine experts.
Olsen et al., 2003; Barber and Almanza, 2006
RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES

11. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
DEVELOPING
ADVANCED
KNOWLEDGE
OF THE PRODUCT
CATEGORY
▸ Wine knowledge and its relation
to purchasing decisions can
be a considerable factor in
determining the consumer’s
wine purchasing process
Lockshin and Hall, 2003

12. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
THE WINE NOVICE
THE WINE INTERESTED
THE WINE LOVER
THE WINE CONNOISSEUR
Hall and Mitchell, 2008

13. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
Has not integrated wine into their lifestyle
Starting to become curious about the product
Interested in learning more about the product
Wine is their hobby

14. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
Most price sensitive
Most value sensitive

15. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
Most sensitive to label design
Most sensitive to wine characteristics

16. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
MATCH THE
OCCASION FOR
WHICH THE WINE
IS PURCHASED
▸ Consumers customarily spend
200% more for a bottle to give
as a gift than they do for a bottle
intended for personal consumption.
(Sherman and Tuten, 2011)
A gift to the boss will never conform
to one consumer habitual spending

17. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
GIFT DINNER PARTY
PERSONAL RESTAURANT
▸ Type of wine
▸ Familiarity
▸ Type of wine
▸ Price
Purchase drivers:

18. RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES
USING THE
PACKAGE AND
LABEL DESIGN
AS QUALITY CUES
▸ Bottle labels are particularly
relevant to the decision-making
process, especially for infrequent
wine drinkers
Boudreaux and Palmer, 2007
Best performing labels under 10$
Nielsen Wine Audit Report, 2015

19. Consumers shop with their
eyes, perusing wines personally,
reading labels as they consider
the possible selections.
Barber and Almanza, 2006
RISK REDUCTION STRATEGIES

20. Consumers
reduce the risk
of adverse
consequences
by selecting fewer
information
option rather
than more.
Chaney, 2000

21. BRAND
GRAPE VARIETY
(PRICE)
The only relevant
product informations
for wine novices
(Thomas, 2000)

22. THE LABEL IS
A CRITICAL
OPPORTUNITY
TO INFLUENCE
PURCHASE
INTENT
KEY FINDING

23. The real aim of all packaging design
is to find a balance between conformity,
which reassures the end-user,
and originality, which creates
an element of surprise and allows
a product to stand out
Heilbrunn, 2006
RESEARCH INSIGHT

24.
WINE LABEL
FUNCTIONS

25. BRAND NAME
WINERY NAME
IDENTIFY
THE PRODUCT
FUNCTIONS OF A WINE LABEL
▸ The above is to
position the wine
Thomas and Pickering, 2003;
Keller et al., 2012

26. DESCRIBE
THE PRODUCT
FUNCTIONS OF A WINE LABEL
(VINTAGE)
ORIGINGRAPE VARIETY
(REGION)
▸ The above is to
differentiate the wine

27. PROMOTE
THE PRODUCT
FUNCTIONS OF A WINE LABEL
IMAGE
COLOUR
▸ The above attracts
prospects attention

28.
WINE LABEL
SEMIOTICS

29. VISUAL ELEMENTS
TEXT ELEMENTS
WINE LABEL SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS ▸ Visual elements
Images, pictures, logos
Typeface style
Colours
Background colour
SHAPE
PAPER
(VISUAL-TO-TASTE
LEXICON)

30. WINE LABEL SEMIOTICS
VISUAL-TO-TASTE
LEXICON
▸ A visual-to-taste lexicon
is made up by the learned
associations of appearance
and taste for food types.
▸ For example, the relation
between the colour of soft drinks
and taste perception.
▸ Food colours communicate
the taste of products.
Koch and Koch, 2003
Purple suggests a fruity taste,
the grape a fully natural content

31. WINE LABEL SEMIOTICS
THE INTERDEPENDENCE ISSUE
▸ Wine labels represent “multimodal texts”: they use several
different semiotic codes in the communication process.
König and Lick, 2014
▸ Elements that are put into the center of a visual
composition convey the gist of the information,
upon which all the other elements are contingent.
Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006
▸ Images, pictures, and logos are the most important
visual design elements of wine labels.
Thomas and Pickering, 2003

32. PERCEPTION
& PURCHASE
INTENT

33. RESEARCH INSIGHT
THE OVERALL PERCEPTION OF THE
PRODUCT CAN BE IS A STRONG
PREDICTOR OF PURCHASE INTENT.
▸ TYPICALITY
Consumers are highly
conservative when it comes
to wine and prefers the
more traditional bottles
in terms of visual aspect.
When purchasing wine,
consumers seek typicality.
Celhay and Passebois, 2011
▸ PERSONALITY
Brand personality
characteristics of success,
charm, spirit, and currency
are the most influential
on purchase intent.
Boudreaux and Palmer, 2007

34. THE TYPICALITY MODEL
EVERY PRODUCT
CATEGORY HAS
WELL ESTABLISHED
VISUAL CODES
▸ White and blue for dairy products
▸ Black and red for coffee
▸ White for electrical appliances
▸ Black and grey for Hi-Fi equipment
etc.
Same visual codes for Italian
and Korean milk

35. WINE LABEL SEMIOTICS
COGNITIVE
CATEGORIES
& PERCIEVED
TYPICALITY
▸ Everything we recognise
is stored in our memory as part
of "cognitive categories" and
is ranked within these categories
according to their degree
of perceived typicality
Mervis, 1975
For human brains, a Pug is less
of a dog than a Labrador

36. Perceived typicality directly influences the visual choices that advertisers
and marketers make when promoting and branding their products

37. THE TYPICALITY MODEL
THE "PREFERENCE
TO THE NORM"
PHENOMENON
▸ The more a stimulus is familiar, the
more it will be perceived as typical
of a given category, and the more it
will be appreciated from an aesthetic
point of view.
Campbell and Goodstein, 2001
▸ In wine, the “norm” is the visual
aesthetic of Bordeaux labels,
established since late 18th century
and never changed since.

38. THE TYPICALITY MODEL
THE "PREFERENCE
TO THE NORM"
PHENOMENON
Visual Code of Bordeaux wine:
▸ White background
▸ Centred layout
▸ Serif Capitals and Cursive Script
▸ Black, Red, Gold colour scheme
▸ Chateaux image
▸ Abundant text information
▸ Regional bottle shape

39. Same traditional designs do not enjoy Bordeaux popularity
and their perceived typicality may be limited by lack of exposure
outside their country of origin

40. WHEN PERCEIVED
RISK IS HIGH,
TYPICALITY
JUDGEMENT
INFLUENCES
PURCHASE INTENT
MORE THAN THE
CONSUMER'S
OWN AESTHETIC
PREFERENCES
KEY FINDING

41. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
BRAND PERSONALITY
IS THE SET
OF HUMAN
CHARACTERISTICS
ASSOCIATED WITH
A BRAND.
▸ It influences consumer preference
and usage (Sirgy, 1982)
▸ It builds emotional ties to the brand
(Biel, 1993)
▸ It creates trust and loyalty among
consumers (Fournier, 1994)
▸ It determines consumers’ response to
changes in quality (Aaker et al., 2004)
Aaker, 1997
Nike is an examples of a
“conqueror” brand personality

42. Wineisasymbolicproduct.
Assuchisusedbyconsumerstoimbue
themselveswiththebrand'spersonality
andcreateassociationswiththe
product'sperceivedusergroup.
Belk, 1998; Malhotra, 1988
RESEARCH INSIGHT

43. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
MATTER
▸ Perception of human personality,
is drawn based minimal or
incomplete evidence. Even in the
face of conflicting evidence,
people tend to feel quite confident
about their perceptions
Kunda, 1999
▸ Consumers may prefer brands that
do not necessarily match their own,
but represent ideals with which they
desire association
Aaker, 1997

44. SINCERITYEXCITEMENT
COMPETENCE
SOPHISTICATIONRUGGEDNESS
BRAND
PERSONALITY
BRAND PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS

45. SINCERITYEXCITEMENT
COMPETENCE
SOPHISTICATIONRUGGEDNESS
WHOLESOME
HONEST
DOWN TO
EARTH
CHEERFUL
IMAGINATIVE
SPIRITED
DARING
UP-TO-DATE
RELIABLE INTELLIGENT SUCCESSFUL
OUTDOORSY TOUGH UPPER CLASS CHARMING
BRAND
PERSONALITY
BRAND PERSONALITY TRAITS

46. SINCERITYEXCITEMENT
COMPETENCE
SOPHISTICATIONRUGGEDNESS
WHOLESOME
HONEST
DOWN TO
EARTH
CHEERFUL
IMAGINATIVE
SPIRITED
DARING
UP-TO-DATE
RELIABLE INTELLIGENT SUCCESSFUL
OUTDOORSY TOUGH UPPER CLASS CHARMING
Daring
Trendy
Exciting
Spirited
Cool
Young
Imaginative
Unique
Up-to-date
Independent
Unique
Down to earth
Family oriented
Small town
Honest
Sincere
Real
Wholesome
Original
Cheerful
Sentimental
Friendly
Reliable
Hardworking
Secure
Intelligent
Technical
Corporate
Successful
Leader
Confident
Outdoorsy
Masculine
Western
Tough
Rugged
Upper class
Glamorous
Good looking
Charming
Feminine
Smooth
BRAND
PERSONALITY
BRAND PERSONALITY FACETS

47. CHEERFUL
IMAGINATIVE
SPIRITED
DARING
UP-TO-DATE
SUCCESSFUL
TOUGH UPPER CLASS CHARMING
BRAND
PERSONALITY
BRAND PERSONALITY: THE FACETS THAT MATTER IN THE WINE CATEGORY

48. When a consumer does not perceive
any risk in a given purchase
situation, moderately atypical
packaging may be preferred.
Campbell and Goodstein, 2001
RESEARCH INSIGHT

49. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
WHAT FACTORS
AFFECTS BRAND
PERSONALITY
PERCEPTION?
▸ Each element of a label's visual
identity, including color, imagery,
typeface and label size, shape, and
material, has an influence on the
different aspects of a product's
brand identity. These elements can
support or undermine one another,
and a product's position tends to be
strongest when they are congruent
Doyle and Bottomley, 2004
A label skewed towards a young,
female consumer demographic

50. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
IMAGE
▸ Image had the strongest effects on
desirability both on market success
factors and on brand personality
▸ Unusual animals are perceived
as “imaginative”, but this is
not positively correlated with
purchase intent
▸ Coats-of-arms are low on
“ruggedness” but high for
“upperclass” and “value”
Boudreaux and Palmer, 2007

51. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
COLOUR
▸ Colour has a strong effect,
but its effect depends on how
much color is used
▸ Warm palettes (burgundy,
red-orange, and neutrals) are
seen as successful, desirable,
and expensive
▸ Bright palettes (wasabi green
and red-orange) were seen
as exciting and imaginative
▸ For backgrounds, unprinted/
unprinted layout reflects “upperclass”

52. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
TYPEFACE
▸ The font style used on wine labels
has an important impact
on consumers' quality perception
of red wine.
Henley et al., 2011
▸ The level of perceived wine quality is
higher in the case of a Roman font
style (serif) compared to an Arial font
style (sans serif).

53. THE PERSONALITY MODEL
RANGE
DIFFERENTIATION
IMPACT
▸ It is important to evaluate
the constituent elements,
individually and in interaction,
as they are perceived by the
design’s intended audience
▸ This is particularly important
when a basic design will be
varied along one or more
dimensions to differentiate
elements of a product line
Quality differentiation shown by colours
and size, with fixed branding elements and
information hierarchy across the range

54.
A bull expresses”toughness”, consumer may choose it for a barbecue
A sun expresses “cheerfulness”, consumers may choose it for a party

55. WHEN PERCEIVED
RISK IS LOW,
THE IMPACT OF
TYPICALITY ON
PURCHASE INTENT
IS LOW.
THE EFFECT OF
AESTHETIC
APPRECIATION
IS TOTAL.
KEY FINDING

56. DON’T
TARGET
CONSUMERS.
TARGET
OCCASIONS.

57. Manage wine
label designs
in accordance
with the type
of consumption
occasion which
you would like
to target.

58. TARGETING OCCASIONS
TARGET
CONSUMPTION
OCCASIONS
▸ Divide your market according to
different consumption occasions
▸ Innovative labels will target
low risk situations:
Wine to be drank at home
Gifts to novice wine drinkers
▸ Traditional labels will target
high risk situations:
Dinner parties
Business gifts
Gifts for experienced wine drinkers
Wine marketers should get out
of the up-scale dinner ghetto!

59. INNOVATIVETYPICAL
HIGH RISK LOW RISK
SHARING PERSONAL
HIGH PRICE LOW PRICE
REASSURING CHALLENGING
TYPICALITY VS PERSONALITY MATRIX

60. INNOVATIVE STYLETRADITIONAL STYLE
CENTRED LAYOUT ASYMMETRICALORLEFT/RIGHT
ENGRAVING/SKETCH PHOTOGRAPH/GRAPHIC
SERIF/CURSIVE TYPE SANS SERIF TYPE
UNPRINTED BACKGROUND COLOURED BACKGROUND
TYPICALITY VS PERSONALITY MATRIX
GOLD/RED/BLACK VIVID COLOURS
CRAFT FINISH SERIALISED FINISH
HERITAGE IMAGERY ABSTRACT/NONCONTEXTUALIMAGERY
DETAILED INFO BASIC INFO
REGIONAL BOTTLE CONTOUR NOVELTY BOTTLE

61. TOP BRANDS
IN 3
MARKETS

62. OFF-PREMISE TOP BRANDS USA
Bordeaux styles dominate, with the notable exception of Barefoot brand,
which reinforces the low-price point – moderately unusual label combo,
same for Yellow Tail. Merlot shows a “blue” visual code.

63. SUPERMARKET TOP BRANDS ITALY
Notably only one label has an identifiably Italian style, with others more
closely associated to Bordeaux visual codes. Freschello seems the only brand
able to pull off a moderately unusual design and be successful

64. ONLINE TOP BRANDS CHINA
Extremely conservative in design, with the notable exception of Yellow Tail
that highlights the dependance of the market on globally dominating groups,
which are better positioned to supply such a big nation

65. THANK
YOU.
▸ Tommaso Minnetti
tommaso.minnetti@gmail.com