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Consumers’ perception of wine Consumers’

perception of
packaging: a case study wine packaging
Benedetto Rocchi and Gianluca Stefani
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Florence,
Florence, Italy 33
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the methodology adopted and the main results
achieved by an exploratory study on consumers perception of wine packaging.
Design/methodology/approach – The research was designed to elicit the relevant dimensions
through which consumers perceive and describe differences between bottles of wine. In order to allow
respondents to freely express their perceptions without suggesting a priori descriptive category/
dimensions a repertory grid (RGT) approach was followed. A sample of 30 consumers were asked to
analyse differences across 11 bottles and to summarize them in descriptive bipolar constructs. The
results were analysed performing a consensus procrustes analysis. An innovative feature of this
study was the analysis of complete transcriptions of interviews to better understand the meaning
assigned by consumers to descriptive constructs.
Findings – The attributes of bottles and labels represent the main factors underlying wine
packaging perceptions. These characteristics are the very first ‘‘signal’’ perceived looking at bottles.
Consumers use them to define more abstract ‘‘constructs’’ (as distinction or tradition) they use while
assessing alternative products and choosing among them. From a methodological point of view, this
study confirm the interest of combining RGT and content analysis as a tool for explorative research
in marketing.
Originality/value – Results seem to be a suitable basis for a survey on a representative sample
directed to model the preferences about packaging features. Moreover, the analysis of preferences
could be improved within a qualitative perspective, using laddering techniques of interview to elicit
the hierarchical structure of motivation linking characteristics, attitudes consumers’ values.
Keywords Wines, Individual perception, Packaging
Paper type Research paper

1. Background and research question

In recent years wine demand has modified its features turning towards consumption
styles where the assessment of quality becomes more and more important. Even in
European countries such as Italy and France, where per-capita consumption, though
substantially reduced through the second half of the XX century, remains at the highest
level in the world, an increasing share of consumers evaluate both material and
immaterial characteristics that make the quality of wine (Nomisma, 2003). At the same
time as an increasing share of quality wine is marketed through the modern retail
sector, consumers often make their choices among a large numbers of alternatives in a
very short time (Britton, 1992). In this context packaging becomes a fundamental
marketing tool for the winery. The shape of the bottle, the colour of glass, types and
drawing in the label should attract the attention of the potential purchaser,
distinguishing a specific wine bottle from several competitors. Moreover the packaging
has to communicate to consumers the relevant and appropriate information about the International Journal of Wine
quality of the wine, in some way replacing the salespersons action (Tootelian and Marketing
Vol. 18 No. 1, 2005
Ross, 2000). pp. 33-44
Using the total food quality model proposed by Grunert (1996) as an interpretive # Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0954-7541
framework, the packaging of wine can be considered as a quality cue contributing to DOI 10.1108/09547540610657669
IJWM define the expected quality of a product. The consumer uses this cues to assess
alternative products with respect to his system of values following a set of subjective
18,1 rules (Hall and Winchester, 2000; Reynolds and Gutman, 1998). The more the
psychological involvement connected with the research of quality, the more the role of
packaging as a quality cue becomes relevant and asks for an effective approach in
packaging design.
In this article the results of an exploratory survey on consumers’ perception of wine
34 packaging are presented. The study has been carried out as a consultancy for a winery
which is leader in the quality segment in Italy. The company had planned to improve
the design of the packaging of two wines (a white denomination of origin wine and a
rosè table wine) marketed through the modern retail sector in the premium segment.
An evaluation of the current packaging of the two products, preliminary to a possible
improvement was necessary. However the management of the company felt that the
packaging restyling needed to be grounded in a better and more general understanding
of how consumers look at bottles of wine. What consumers mainly see in a bottle at
first glance? Which packaging elements are relevant in the comparison among
alternative products? Which pattern of features is better at inducing purchase?
The research was designed to answer these questions, exploring the relevant
dimensions through which consumers perceive and describe differences across bottles
of wine. It is worthwhile to stress the exploratory nature of the research design. Indeed
the main objective was to elicit as many as possible ‘‘dimensions’’ of the wine
packaging relevant for the purchasing decision, more than the evaluation of
preferences about them. Moreover, the focus on the relationship between visual
perceptions and purchasing process has several psychological implications that need
to be taken into account. Thus, the repertory grid (RG) approach was adopted as a
suitable methodological framework. The paper is set out as follows. In the second
section the main features of the RG approach are outlined. In section 3 data collection
and the interview protocol are presented. The analysis of data is carried out in sections
4 and 5. The former of these sections refers to the quantitative analysis of RGs while
the latter deals with a qualitative analysis of interview transcripts. Finally conclusions
are drawn in the last section.

2. Methodological framework
The RG is an interview technique developed by Kelly as a part of his Personal
Construct theory (1957). The personal construct theory was proposed by Kelly to
analyse the way people look at and evaluate the world surrounding them. According to
this framework people adopt a ‘‘scientific’’ attitude, formulating and testing hypothesis
about people, events and things and verifying the existence of possible relationships
between them. The general way these hypotheses are formulated is through bi-polar
constructs. These are implicit dimensions describing contrasting poles existing at
different levels of reality and are organized in a hierarchy (e.g. sympathetic vs.
antipathetic, traditional vs. modern and so on).
The RG technique of interview was developed as a tool to elicit the constructs that
people adopt to describe the ‘‘elements’’ (as people, events, things) the researcher is
interested in (Fransella et al., 2003). The adoption of a RG is a promising strategy for
exploratory surveys as it allows respondents to freely express their perceptions. This
is because no descriptive categories are suggested by the researcher. In fact, during a
RG interview people are asked to define by themselves the dimensions suitable to
describe differences between alternatives. The interviewer role is simply to submit the
alternatives (‘‘elements’’) to be described helping respondents to express the Consumers’
contrasting poles of the constructs they use.
Although the relevance of RG technique in marketing had been debated from a
perception of
methodological point of view (Marsden and Littler, 2000), there are several feature of wine packaging
this approach that make it attractive for consumer behaviour studies (Gains, 1994).
First, unlike other forms of interviews, the RGT eliminates the interviewer bias in the
definition of descriptive dimensions. Second, as the descriptive dimensions elicited
through RG in-depth interviews are expressed in a terminology defined by the
35
respondent himself, RG represents a valuable tool in the definition of marketing
strategies.
Finally the way a RG interview is developed reduces to a relevant extent the
difficulties that usually arise during non structured interviews when respondents are
asked to freely describe the characteristics of a specific product. Conversely, within the
RG interview the description of the products directly emerges from the elicitation of
the differences perceived by respondents when they face alternative expressions of the
same ‘‘element’’. For instance, following the so called ‘‘triadic’’ approach (Fransella et al.,
2003), the respondent is systematically asked to identify one of three alternative objects
(e.g. three different packages of the same product) that is perceived as different from
the other two. The choice is then synthesised with an expression (a word, a simple
proposition) representing the ‘‘construct’’ underlining the separation that has been
made.
The RG approach has been applied also in food marketing research, to study the
acceptability of foods (McEwan and Thomson, 1989) and the evaluation of beverages
with respect to different contexts of consumption (Gains and Thomson, 1990). In the
latter study the ‘‘grids’’ containing the constructs used to describe a set of alternative
canned lagers are used as input in a consensus analysis performed with the generalized
procrustean technique. This leads to a mapping of the different products in a
‘‘descriptive’’ space defined by the elicited constructs. The same approach was adopted
in our study in order to provide a first assessment of the relative positioning of a set of
competing wines that includes the two products of the winery that promoted the
research. In addition, due to the exploratory nature of the study, the multivariate
analysis of grids has been complemented by a content analysis of the transcript of the
interviews, with two aims: to clarify the meanings attributed by respondents to the
elicited constructs and to explore the attitudes and the motivations behind the elicited
system of constructs. In the next section the research design will be described in detail.

3. Research design and interview protocol

A convenience sample of 30 in-depth interviews was carried out. The sample selection
criteria were agreed with the partner winery that asked to recruit participants really
interested in wine consumption; in other words, the survey was purposefully designed
to investigate the perceptions of typical classes of consumers. Indeed, the exploratory
nature of the research suggested a composition of the sample compatible with the
elicitation of the broadest range of constructs (rather than being representative of some
reference population). As a consequence, different stratification criteria were
simultaneously implemented: sex (50 per cent male, 50 per cent female), socio
demographic condition and consumption attitude (students 33 per cent, forty-years-old
33 per cent, connoisseurs 33 per cent). The interviews were equally divided between
the two wine typology (15 for white and 15 rosè wines). A pack of six bottles of wine
was given to participants as incentive. All interviews were completely recorded.
IJWM The management of the partner winery choose also two sets of competitors wines to
compare with its own products during the interviews, selecting items with the same
18,1 price quality ratio.
Each interview consisted of two phases. The first ‘‘formal’’ phase was devoted to the
elicitation of constructs using the RG technique while the second consisted in a
debriefing (non structured conversation). Only at this stage was the name of the
sponsor winery revealed to participants.
36 During the RG phase groups of three bottles were showed in sequence to respondents
asking them to answer to the following question: ‘‘How are two of these bottles alike in
some way but different from the third?’’ For each perceived difference the respondent was
asked to synthesise the construct used in the task. The interviewer encouraged the
respondent to express each construct in a bi-polar way, i.e. choosing two opposite concepts
appropriately encompassing all the possible position of the objects (in this case the bottles)
with respect to the construct. Triads have been proposed to consumer adopting an
experimental balance incomplete block design according to which each triad must include
a bottle from the previous one and each bottle is proposed to each respondent the same
number of times. After the full sequence of triads had been submitted, respondents were
asked to evaluate each bottle with respect to each elicited construct, using a Likert seven
levels scale anchored to the opposite poles of the construct.
The second part of the interview began asking respondents to rank bottles
following their preferences about packaging. Starting from the answer a free
discussion followed during which the researcher stimulated the respondent to
comment on his choices and what motivated them.
Following the protocol outlined above two typologies of data were obtained
through the survey: a set of RGs (one for each respondent) containing the
scores assigned to each wine on the basis of the elicited constructs; and a set of
transcripts with the complete recording of the interviews. These materials have been
used to carry out two different analysis: a generalized procrustean analysis
(Krazanowski, 1998) to build a consensus configuration on the basis of the RGs, the
results of which will be presented in the following section; and a content analysis of the
transcripts, aiming to a better interpretation of the consensus configuration, that will
be the object of section 5.

4. Consensus analysis
An example of RG for rosè wines is illustrated in Table I. To simplify the table
constructs are identified with only one of the two poles elicited by the assessor. The
higher the score assigned to a wine the more the pole indicated in the column header is
perceived as appropriate to describe the wine corresponding to the considered row.

Constructs
Really expressive Traditional Appropriate Label suggests
Wines Large bottle label label name for quality

Rosè 1 2 5 7 7 6
Table I. Rosè 2 3 7 4 5 5
An example of RG for Rosè 3 7 1 5 1 1
the rosè wines, assessor Rosè 4 4 4 1 2 1
no. 7 Rosè 5 1 2 2 2 2
Obviously, number of columns and column headers are different across grids as they Consumers’
depend on the set of constructs used by each respondent in describing the bottles
of wine.
perception of
Each grid can be seen as the representation of the object (the bottle) in an n-dimension wine packaging
space the dimensions of which are defined by the constructs. Due to the quantitative
nature of the collected data a multivariate technique could be used to compare these
representations. The procrustean approach offers a tool appropriate to this scope
(Krazanowski, 1998). In a procrustean analysis two or more alternative configurations of
37
the same set of objects in an n-dimension space are transformed through translation,
rotation and dilation of the space itself. All these operations, without influencing the
internal relationship existing between points, tend to create a new space in which the
individual configurations match as possible. The outcome of such transformation can
be analysed from two points of view: by describing the consensus configuration,
represented by the centroids of the individual points in the transformed space; and by
analysing the differences existing between individual configurations.
Following Gains and Thompson (1990), in order to perform a generalized
procrustean analysis and obtain a consensus configuration, the RG dimensions were
standardized. All the grids were enlarged to the maximum size defined by the assessor
which had elicited the maximum number of constructs, adding to the other grids the
appropriate number of zero columns.
The GP analysis was carried out separately for white and rosè wines using the
GENPROCRUSTES procedure of the Genstat package for statistical analysis. Table II
shows the percentage variance accounted for by projecting on the consensus axes the
final configuration for each assessor.
An acceptable homogeneity between individual profiles and with respect to the
consensus configuration seems to emerge. The columns show an increasing variation
of data across assessors moving from the first through the fifth factor.

Factors
Assessors Fac 1 Fac 2 Fac 3 Fac 4 Fac 5 Fac 1 + fac 2

1 54.4 29.2 3.8 3.9 8.7 83.6

2 48.2 18.1 24.1 8.6 1.1 66.2
3 36.9 43.1 13.5 4.1 2.4 80.0
4 41.9 31.7 8.1 8.7 9.7 73.6
5 46.9 19.0 10.1 10.8 13.2 65.9
6 45.5 25.5 3.2 11.4 14.4 71.1
7 23.4 56.0 3.8 7.2 9.6 79.4
8 43.9 43.9 6.5 2.3 3.4 87.8
9 42.9 26.3 8.5 19.1 3.2 69.3
10 42.7 46.0 3.0 2.1 6.2 88.7
11 23.7 50.3 16.6 4.4 5.1 74.0
12 46.8 31.8 11.6 4.4 5.3 78.7
13 29.5 51.3 4.2 12.1 2.8 80.8 Table II.
14 58.1 31.0 3.3 5.6 2.0 89.1 Percentage variance
15 32.5 43.3 13.9 7.9 2.5 75.7 accounted for by final
Consensus cv between 43.6 36.5 8.2 6.7 5.0 80.1 individual configurations
assessors 24.8 33.0 68.5 60.5 70.5 9.9 for the white wines
IJWM Noticeably, the first two factors accounts for more than 80 per cent of total variance in
18,1 the consensus configuration and the largest part of the variance of the individual final
configuration (at least more than 65 per cent). As a consequence they can be used to
synthesise the results of the analysis. In Figure 1 the consensus configuration is rotated
on the first two axes. Each factor has been interpreted through its correlation with the
original constructs expressed by the assessors (Gains, 1994). The scripts on the graph
38 report constructs most highly correlated with principal axes: only constructs with a
correlation higher than 90 per cent in absolute value have been included. Moreover, as
the objective of the analysis was the interpretation of consensus, only the constructs
with a coherent sign in their correlation with axes have been included[1].
The interpretation of the two axes appears to be quite a straightforward exercise.
The horizontal axis seems to refer mainly to the shape of the bottle and the colour of
glass. Both these features are associated to a more abstract construct relative to
tradition vs. innovativeness of the bottle. Conversely, the constructs most highly
correlated with the second factor concern the way bottles are ‘‘dressed’’ with labels and
capsules. Different features of these components of packaging are connected again with
the descriptive dimensions referring to the tradition/innovation dyad.
The same consensus analysis for the set of rosè wines is illustrated in Table III and
Figure 2.
Again, even if to a lesser extent, the first two factors account for the major part of
the total variance (more than 70 per cent). All the same, the interpretation of the axes is
not so clear as in the previous case.
Constructs referring to the components of packaging tend to be highly correlated both
with the first and the second axis (capsule, label), although with emphasis on different
functions. For example, the first axis is connected with carefulness in the capsule design
(contrasted with its eventual anonymity) whereas the second factor appears to be
inversely correlated with darkness of the capsule colour. While the second factor talks

very traditional labels, descriptive back label

company logo in evidence, simple capsule
0,5
traditional, bordolaise bottle,

Importantand innovative bottle

0,4
light-coloured glass

dark-coloured glass

0,3 w3
w5 0,2

0,1 w4
0
w1
-0,5 -0,4 -0,3 -0,2 -0,1 0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5
-0,1

-0,2
w2
-0,3
w6
-0,4

-0,5
Figure 1.
Consensus configuration small and gaudy labels with dark and original
for the white wines colours, innovative capsule
 Factors Consumers’
Assessors Fac 1 Fac 2 Fac 3 Fac 4 Fac 1 + fac 2 perception of
1 55.9 20.9 15.0 8.2 76.8
wine packaging
2 24.4 30.5 35.2 9.9 54.9
3 32.6 51.1 10.0 6.3 83.8
4 37.9 20.2 22.9 19.0 58.1
5 47.7 27.3 18.8 6.3 74.9 39
6 31.5 39.9 10.3 18.2 71.5
7 46.2 25.1 20.2 8.5 71.3
8 57.5 32.3 6.4 3.8 89.8
9 36.6 30.8 10.9 21.7 67.4
10 46.5 18.7 23.0 11.9 65.2
11 48.4 21.2 11.1 19.3 69.5
12 41.6 31.8 17.7 8.8 73.4
13 46.5 20.0 19.0 14.6 66.5 Table III.
14 46.5 29.6 10.1 13.9 76.0 Percentage variance
15 33.8 42.7 13.7 9.8 76.5 accounted for by final
Consensus cv between 42.4 30.0 15.9 11.8 72.4 individual configurations
assessors 22.0 31.8 45.0 45.9 12.4 for the rosè wines

above all about more objective features of packaging (shape and dimension of bottle,
colours) the first seems to outline a more abstract dimension referring to the dyad
elegance/importance contrasted with anonymity (associated with cheapness).
To check for the existence of clusters of assessors with similar configurations a
principal coordinate analysis was carried out using the residuals of individual final
configurations with respect to the consensus configuration[2]. In Figures 3 and 4 the
assessors are plotted against the first two extracted factor, divided by sex. The first
two axes account respectively for 69 per cent of variance in the case of white wines, and
70 per cent for the rosè case. As a consequence, the plots can be considered a good

big bottle, flat bottom, label with vivid

elegant, "rich", careful made bottle , traditional,

colours
careful made capsule, with company mark,

0,5

0,4
anonymous capsule, cheap bottle
elegant, important labels

0,3

r1 r5
0,2

0,1
r4
0
-0,5 -0,4 -0,3 -0,2 -0,1 0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5
r2 -0,1

-0,2

-0,3

-0,4 r3

-0,5
Figure 2.
traditional colours, dark capsule, label Consensus configuration
suggests for quality for the rosè wines
IJWM
18,1 0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2

40 0,1
fac2
0
-0,6 -0,4 -0,2 -0,1 0 0,2 0,4 0,6
-0,2
Figure 3.
Principal coordinate -0,3
analysis on the residual of -0,4
individual configurations
for the white wines men women -0,5
fac1

picture of the relative position of each assessor with respect to the consensus
configuration.
No evident cluster seems to emerge. Only in the white wine case the first factor
(horizontal) seems to discriminate between men and women[3].
As a consequence a separate GPA by sex was carried out. A better interpretation of
the factors is achieved in the rosè case, with men reproducing the description of bottles
with the two fundamental dimensions of bottles and dress already found in the white
wine case; moreover the women’s consensus configuration gives rise to an interesting
opposition between the concepts of refined and youthful.
From the consensus analysis seems to emerge a quite clear picture of the main
descriptive dimension that the interviewed consumers use to describe and assess
different bottles of wine. However constructs are synthetic definitions of concepts that
can present a variable and, in some cases, high degree of complexity and abstractness.
In this context a more qualitative approach appears to be a necessary to complement
the multivariate analysis on RGs. In the next section some further findings from the
analysis of the transcripts of the interviews will be presented.

0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
fac2

0,0
-0,6 -0,4 -0,2 -0,1 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6
-0,2
Figure 4. -0,3
Principal coordinate -0,4
analysis on the residual of
individual configurations -0,5
men women fac1
for the rosè wines
5. Content analysis Consumers’
As recalled in the third section, both the structured and the unstructured phases of all perception of
interviews were recorded. After a complete transcription of the tapes, a qualitative
analysis of the answers was performed. Using NVivo, a dedicated software for content wine packaging
analysis, the texts were coded using the elicited constructs as a guide.
First of all a qualitative profile for each wine was drafted with reference to the main
descriptive dimensions emerged in the consensus analysis. Moreover, a comparative 41
analysis was carried out with reference to the different components of the packaging
(bottles, labels, capsules and so on).
Through the analysis of RGs at least two different levels of the ‘‘construing system’’
(Fransella et al., 2003) of the respondents, with a different degree of abstractedness, are
identified. Constructs referring to more concrete attributes of packaging contribute to
define constructs concerning more abstract ones. Bearing in mind this finding, coding
has been finalized also to the identification of quotations that allow a better
understanding of the exact meaning attributed by consumers to constructs and
hierarchical relationships existing between them. In the remaining part of this section
the interpretation of the most important descriptive dimensions used by the
respondent will be discussed. In the presentation of the content analysis we will move
from the more concrete attribute of the bottles towards the more abstract constructs.
At a very basic level of perception stand colours. All respondents talk about colours
both to stress differences and to express preferences. The following quotations well
represent the different role assigned to colours:
. . . it looks like a low valuable wine . . . glass and wine appear too light
I want to see the colour of wine, I do not like dark glass . . .
. . . the capsule’s green is warmer . . . I like the combination with the colour of label . . .
In the case of white wines the colour of glass is the material attribute of packaging
most frequently considered: it seems able to discriminate across wines with a different
perceived level of value. Colours are critical also for rosè wines but in a more complex
way: consumers look for harmony, coherence in the use of colours, also with regard to
the content of the bottle.
Among the material attributes of the packaging also the shape and the size of the
bottle are often cited by consumers as important features to be considered in the
comparison between alternative products. As is shown by the following quotation (as
well as by many others) the size is a clearly perceived visual signal but does not show a
clear correlation with particular messages: it is simply recorded at a very first level of
perception by consumers.
These are both shorter . . .
Conversely, in the white wines case the bordelaise was clearly considered the ‘‘traditional’’
type of bottle, contrasting to different shapes that are immediately observed:
These two bottles have the same long and narrow shape . . . it is an innovative feature
The flat bottom, in both white and rosè wines, has been associated to a lower value
assigned to the bottle, as stressed by the following quotation:
The bottom is flat, it looks like a bottle for water . . .
IJWM The level of abstractedness increases considering the constructs related to labels.
Labels are assessed with respect to their position, shape and size, usually jointly with
18,1 the bottle dimensions. Summarizing the message emerging from the transcripts, labels
seem to be assessed contrasting the information they bring to consumers with their
ability to evoke more abstract functions assigned to the consumption of wine. While
front label is usually considered for evocation, back label is expected to provide to an
informative function, containing the relevant technical information about the wine:
42
This one contains no information . . . that one has a complete description in the back label
. . . innovative labels, searching for a new message . . .
Front and back labels are often jointly assessed: the coherence between the two is
considered as a signal of care in packaging design. Moreover, there appears to exist a
problem of equilibrium and appropriateness in the use of the labels, well expressed by
the following sentence:
. . . the web site on the back label . . . it doesn’t work for an important wine.
Finally the (global) message about the wine mainly passes through the choice of
colours (particularly for rosè), materials and graphic elements of the labels:
. . . watermarked paper has a positive effect on me . . . gives me the sensation of a valuable
wine
The two following quotations can be used to introduce the analysis of the more
abstract (second level) constructs concerning the distinction of a wine.
. . . the bottle is made with care, is longer, with a thorough graphic, golden inscriptions, the
mark on the capsule . . .
. . . it looks cheaper, it seems made carelessly
The words important, polished, refined seem to refer to the same construct and
generally contrast with cheapness and anonymity. Often respondents link distinction
with the care spent to design the bottle, assessing the coherence in the use of
characters, clear printing, homogeneous graphical signs on different parts of the
bottles and so on. Some attributes are indicated as inconsistent with the distinction of a
wine: flat bottom of the bottle, vivid colours in labels and capsules and a light-coloured
glass in the case of white wines.
A recurring theme is also synthesised by the opposition between tradition and
innovation, often associated to the term classic opposed to modern. The following
sentence is a part of a longer quotation where the respondent also talks about bar codes
and ISO certification mark, elements that were present in one of the proposed bottles:
. . . the e-mail on the back is not right . . . it is better a simple, traditional feature . . .
The value attributed to traditional features, that can or cannot be connected with
distinction, is variable with the attitude of the respondent. In some cases tradition is
interpreted as a sign of reliability; in others as a sign of lack of innovation.
. . . it is too ‘‘alternative’’ . . . it doesn’t convey a sense of tradition . . .
. . . it is inspiring, the new shape of the bottle, so different from the canons of Tuscany, the
dark label . . .
Finally, innovativeness is generally appreciated if associate with care in details.
6. Concluding remarks Consumers’
In this work the results of an exploratory survey preliminary to the redesigning of the perception of
packaging of two wines have been presented. A sample of consumers was interviewed
adopting a RG approach to elicit the main dimensions through which they describe the wine packaging
differences between alternative bottles of wine. Collected data were analysed using
both multivariate techniques and the qualitative content analysis of transcripts.
The answer the study gives to the research questions can be summarized as follows. 43
The first glance description of packaging is built by respondents around two
fundamental dimensions. On the one hand consumers seem to be affected by shape,
size and colour of the bottle; on the other hand they consider the dress of the bottle,
represented by the set of the other packaging elements (labels, capsules). Although in
different ways, these two axes of description seem to be relevant for both white and
rosè wines.
The way consumers describe the perceived differences among alternative
packagings and their preferences between them points out the existence of a
conceptual hierarchy. At a very basic level we find concrete attributes like colour, shape
and size. These characteristics represent the very first signal perceived by respondents
in front of bottles. Consumers use them to define other constructs that refer to more
abstract characteristics they use while assessing alternative products and choosing
among them. In the case of the wines considered in this study, the most important
dimensions were the bi-polar dyads of tradition vs. innovativeness, distinction vs.
anonymity and care vs. carelessness. Obviously, consumers with different attitudes
can use the same concept to choose in opposite ways. In any case efforts are devoted
to assess the coherence between the single element/construct perceived and the
overall message the bottle seem to propose. There is, for instance, the case of light
colour of glass for white wines, considered incompatible with the distinction of
the bottle.
Some concluding remarks can be made from a methodological point of view as well.
The RG approach has been confirmed to be an effective tool for conducting exploratory
in-depth interviews. The feature of this methodology of main interest for exploratory
surveys is represented by giving respondents the opportunity to freely express their
perception. Moreover, the triadic technique of elicitation, with its repetitions, allows
respondents to progressively improve and specify their description of the elements.
In the context of this work the analysis of grids using multivariate techniques has
been interpreted as a useful tool in the interpretation of the answers collected during
the survey. As a consequence the consensus configuration obtained cannot be
considered in any way an interpretative model of how consumers rank the wines.
Notwithstanding, the description of constructs is inevitably connected with the
expression of preferences. For this reason the combination of the RG technique with
content analysis allows for a first glance interpretation of ‘‘motivation’’ existing behind
the consumers’ perceptions. This result is witnessed by the elicitation of constructs of
different degrees of abstraction.
Further developments are possible both using quantitative and qualitative
approaches. First the results seem to be a suitable basis for a survey on a
representative sample directed to model the preferences about packaging features. For
example the elicited constructs could be used to design a conjoint analysis that would
be an effective way to identify the preferred combination of attributes for the
packaging of the considered wines.
IJWM The analysis of preferences could be improved also within a qualitative perspective.
Starting from the elicited constructs and using laddering techniques of interview the
18,1 hierarchical structure of motivation linking characteristics, attitudes and values could
be further explored.

Notes
1. As the constructs are independently defined by each assessor, despite their being
44 described using the same words, they can express opposite concepts. For example the
‘‘innovativeness’’ of a bottle could be linked by a respondent to features that another one
links to ‘‘traditionality’’.
2. A symmetrical matrix of similarities calculated from the residuals has been used as the
input data set for the PCO procedure of Genstat.
3. The other adopted criteria of stratification do not show any clear connection with the
factors.

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Corresponding author
Benedetto Rocchi can be contacted at: benedetto.rocchi@unifi.it

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