Wine consumer sensory and attitudinal data and analytics platform Quini has updated its self-serve QUINI DATA platform, with the addition of a dashboard delivering topline consumer insights about a product, at a glance.
Quini CEO Roger Noujeim
Vancouver, BC-based Quini provides wine and restaurant industry execs with real-time wine tasting sensory, attitude and ratings data, analytics and software solutions. The firm’s data collection and live custom analytics platform, QUINI DATA, taps into its wine tasting event management software applications, consumer tasting panel network, and machine learning algorithms.
This platform, which is now accessible via mobile, offers access to a new analytics dashboard, through which wine professionals can obtain answers on-demand, and support the various business functions in a winery. This includes marketing, business intelligence, wine making and innovation teams, consumer insight managers, direct to consumer (DTC) and wine club groups. In addition, Quini has moved its platform away from the use of third-party data visualization software, eliminating all related licensing costs.
CEO Roger Noujeim (pictured) comments: ‘We recognize that busy executives don’t always have time to dig deep into data. Product analysis at a glance, on a single screen via mobile, enables the professional to be better informed with consumer intelligence, where and when they need it. Anyone at a winery who can benefit from access to consumer sensory data should and can now have that access’.
The wine industry is constantly faced new trends, challenges, and the pressure to stay ahead of the competition. With that, comes the opportunity to innovate.
Each year Wine Industry Advisor recognizes five wine industry innovators—not just for their impressive ingenuity or technical advances—but because of how their product and/or service betters the North American wine industry.
When you boil down why Quini could be highly successful, it comes down to the wine sensory data and analytics company being able to level the playing field for producers.
“You no longer have be to be a winery the size of E. & J. Gallo or have your own sensory lab for you to have world-class research capabilities,” says Roger Noujeim, Quini’s CEO.
The firm, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, unveiled the industry’s first integrated near real-time sensory data and sales analytics platform at the 2020 Unified Wine & Grape Symposium. Its success has netted one of Wine Industry Network’s WINnovation awards for 2021.
Noujeim says what’s exciting about Quini’s B2B model is that “we are helping wineries to answer business and product questions through what is commonly understood as consumer sensory research, in around one-third of the time and cost of traditional research.”
Quini Product Demonstration—On Demand Consumer Sensory Data
This platform and its faster access to valuable information at an affordable price has allowed producers to remove what has been three big barriers to using consumer research.
One of those, Noujeim says, is that many winemakers make the wine primarily based on their expertise and taste rather than consumer opinion. “The focus on the end consumer has never been up there in terms of really understanding them,” he says, adding that the process is beginning to change as more producers start to hire consumer-centered marketing professionals with major wine or CPG company experience such as Gallo, Procter & Gamble, and others.
A second hurdle has been the length of time it has taken, as much as several months, for answers to the consumer research to come back. What also has been a difficult workaround has been the cost, as much as $20,000 or more just for three or four focus groups, “and that deliver only snapshot-in-time answers to your questions,” Noujeim says. “That’s it. It stops. And here’s the important thing to remember: The value of data in a snapshot research is mostly relevant to the specific research and often starts to degrade right after the data is acquired.”
With Quini’s integrated system and infrastructure, producers can get their answers in three to four weeks rather than several months and from an aggregation of larger consumer audiences.
“Instead of putting people to manually organize research for a client project, we created a model with consumer panels running regularly in all the client’s key markets,” Noujeim says.
In addition, the data capture and reporting is automated, so developing the research is virtually instant and if the tasting is done in the evening, the client has the interactive analytics on their laptop in the morning. The unique data capture software, report delivery and consumer reach, he says, “has significantly cut down the time a winery needs to get answers and hugely reduces the cost.”
The data can be pinpointed to the specific needs of the producers, from answering the ‘why’ behind sales declines and evaluating product cannibalization risks to understanding millennial consumer or regional market preferences.
“We found that every winery has a different business or product question on the CEO’s or owner’s mind,” Noujeim says. “The data they acquire is so deep and rich, it can help you to quickly answer and move on from a lingering question while the value of that data and insight compounds and increases over time as new, regularly incoming data is added.”
All WINnovation Award winners will be exhibited at Wine Industry Network’s WINExpo at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds on December 2, 2021, where they will also receive their official award and highlighted in the program guide. Register here.
It’s wine bottling season and new research from UBC’s Okanagan campus shows that younger sippers should be inspired, rather than lectured, during their tasting experience.
The international study, published in the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, found that millennials and generation z—those between the ages of 18 to 40—appreciate wine more when they define it on their own terms and with the support of technology instead of learning with traditional terminology and analysis.
“The traditional way of teaching wine appreciation using a verbal lexicon is turning off and boring young consumers,” says Annamma Joy, professor in the Faculty of Management and co-author of the study. “With their spending power, it makes sense for winemakers to adapt the experience to better engage them as new customers.”
She says that these findings provide key marketing insights to the $9 billion Canadian wine industry.
Dr. Joy and her colleagues from Cornell University first tested how a holistic tasting approach compared to a traditional one with young wine drinkers with an average age of 24. The traditional group analyzed the wine’s taste by deconstructing flavour profiles and writing detailed descriptions. On the other hand, the holistic group, learned to appreciate wine tastes by drawing images and discussing them. Both of the groups enjoyed learning about wine, but those who participated in the holistic group engaged in a deeper, more thoughtful way.
“While new consumers might find the analytical approach effective at teaching them how to differentiate tastes, the holistic approach allows them to create a more emotional connection to the wine—bringing meaning beyond the test environment,” says Dr. Joy.
The next research step was to determine what references these young consumers use for wine information, for both new experiences and follow-up education. Generational differences in wine education were analyzed using the digital platform, QUINI. The number of online interactions increased with younger generations—millennials (24 to 40 years) engage more than generation x (41 to 56 years) and baby boomers (57 to 75 years). Also, as generation z (6 to 24 years) consumers reach drinking age, their online activity increases. The researchers also noted that the type of information preferred differs between generations, with older ones preferring traditional education and newer consumers turning to experiences such as wine-tastings and wine tourism.
“Our research shows that younger consumers are interested in wine, but their approach is different than what their parents experienced. Making learning fun and using digital platforms can increase their appreciation of wine and provide a positive path to developing future wine consumers,” says Dr. Joy.
“Wine needs a great story to attract the millennials and younger generations. If you don’t have one, you may be left with sour grapes.”
By Quini TeamJune 1, 2021Comments Off on Building Wine Appreciation for the New Generation Consumer
In a Cornell Hospitality Quarterly December 2020 special issue on the wine business, a joint research paper highlights what the wine industry must do to develop the younger wine consumer’s appreciation for wine.
You can view the Abstract or access the full paper on the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly site, at this link.
Today we also submitted our research presentation for publication and discussion at the 72nd ASEV National Conference. The virtual conference will be held June 21-24.
The findings from the research should make every wine producer, retailer and stakeholder organization stop to think about their current communication processes and the data they rely on to advance decisions.
“In the future, no wine from any producer of consequence should make it to market without the thumbs up from consumers.” Roger Noujeim, CEO, Quini
Following are key highlights from the research paper.
Industry Disconnect Wine education poses a paradox to the industry: consumers say they desire to know more about wine, yet they report being overwhelmed. The traditional analytic approach to education has involved teaching consumers a “grid” with rules for analysis that rely on language that younger consumers dislike.
Holistic Wine Education and Communication Wine marketing and education have been the primary means of gaining and attracting new consumers. But doing things the “old way” doesn’t seem to be working for younger consumers.
In our research we suggest that the industry move from a verbal analytic approach to a more holistic approach to their education and communication. In Study 1 we test how the analytic versus holistic approach results in differences in discrimination and liking of wine for young wine consumers. We then describe a new app, QUINI, and its digital approach to wine education. We mined three years of their data to uncover generational involvement in digital wine tasting. We also conducted a survey of their consumers to determine any differences in interest in wine and wine education. We discuss the managerial implications of our findings.
Hypotheses The traditional approach to wine education believes that consumer appreciation can be guided by unbiased, impartial, and experienced judging. Rule-based grids and verbal lexicons have been developed to teach mastery.
However, younger consumers are turned off by expert lingo and want a learning experience that is meaningful to them.
Study 1: Learning To Like Versus Discriminate Sixty-nine wine consumers between 21 and 35 years old attended a learning session presented as a wine tasting and education event, where they were randomly assigned to either a holistic or an analytic learning condition. The holistic group learned to more fully experience tasting wine by drawing images. The analytic group, in contrast, learned to analyze the wine’s taste through deconstructing taste elements into individual elements and writing a detailed description of the wine.
Key Findings Those with prior education did better on the wine test (MEducation = 2.2 versus MNoEducation = 1.2, t(67)= 3.54 p = .0007); reported drinking more styles/varieties of wine (MEducation = 4.87 versus MNoEducation = 3.15 t(67) – 2.49 p = .01) and overall more engaged wine behavior (MEducation = 12.77 versus MNoEducation = 10.64 t(67)= 1.99 p = .05).
Study 2: Generational Differences In Wine Learning QUINI is a visual wine education and evaluation tool designed to help consumers to better understand their wine preferences, as they pro-actively learn and expand their experience of wine. The app allows consumers to evaluate wines on sensory qualities from color to aroma, to taste and finish. It is visually appealing and allows the consumer to form an overall evaluation for the wine, so that the ratings across consumers are systematic, irrespective of their wine knowledge or expertise. Users report enjoying the experience and sharing their results with others.
Quini’s Universal Wine Tasting Standard Used to Instantly Record and Analyze Consumer Sensory and Attitudinal Impressions
Key Findings Millennials have been engaging with wine on QUINI more than Gen X and Baby boomers. Generation Z drinkers proved they are equally qualified to express an opinion about wine. They seem to be as diligent and expressive in their wine ratings, at times even tougher critics.
Method An online survey was distributed to QUINI participants in US and Canadian tastings in the Summer/Fall 2019. 81 completed the survey (36 baby boomers, 21 Gen Xers, 21 millennials).
Measures The Hedonic and Eudaimonic scales from the PEAQ-S used in Study 1 were also employed here. The Hedonic scales loaded on one factor with a Cronbach alpha = .84 and were combined into a Hedonic Index. The eudaimonia items loaded on one factor with Cronbach alpha = .92 and were combined to form an Eudaimonic Index.
Results Hedonic/Eudamonic Motivation. For Hedonic motivation the overall model was significant F(2,75) = 3.22 p = .05, with means Gen X = 26.38, millennial = 30.24, baby boom = 29.47. These were not significantly different from one another. For Eudaimonic, the model was significant at F(2,75) = 5.32 p = .007. Gen X was found to be significantly lower than the other two generations using the Tukey procedure, Gen X = 18.00, millennial = 24.52, Baby boomer = 23.5.
To obtain a copy of the full paper, please write to us at info@quiniwine.com.
