Integrating Environmental Attributes into Marketing Strategies of Wine Producers

Abstract

Due to the fast technological advancement, pressures regarding environmental sustainability and social responsibility have become inseparable part of every industry. Wine industry, which is based on the agricultural products has a direct impact on the environment and consequently is involved in the general trend and increased concern of the environmental sustainability. Together with the high quality, contemporary and future consumers will expect the wine-growing and producing practices to be environmentally sustainable. This trend has the direct influence on the obvious shift of wine producers from corks to alternative twists as the top closures of the bottle. Occurring without actual tree removal, cork harvesting retains wildlife habitat in a uniquely biologically diverse landscape. Consequently important notion exists that fate of many species is tied to that of cork industry. This trend creates interesting relationship among cost reduction, environmental ustainability and customer perception and segmentation. More specifically, while alternative twist tops, other than corks, increase the ease of consuming the product, it decreases the customers’ perception of oldness, which represents an important aspect of the wine consumers purchasing behaviour. This indicates the necessity of careful analyses of the different segments of the market regarding the preferences of ease of usage or age of wines keeping in mind the environmental sustainability. Consequently
the main focus will be made on presenting the findings, which will demonstrate the interesting correlation of above mentioned aspects of viti/viniculture, followed by the recommendations on proper integration of the environmental attributes in overall marketing strategies of wine producers, as the means of motivation for maintaining environmental sustainability.