40. Branding Cues and Millennial Consumer Behavior

Abstract

Contrasting with prior generations, millennials consider wine a beverage for all occasions, influencing wine branding to reflect this casual attitude (Wolf & Thomas, 2007). The current study seeks to further prior research by examining millennial decision-making when purchasing wine, focusing on price and label style. Participants will view a bottle and taste a set of samples, having been told the samples are non-alcoholic juices from which the wine originates. Each participant will rate their samples on taste and likelihood to purchase (King & Heymann, 2013), and a control group will estimate the price of the bottle. Brands of wine used will be within the range most purchased by Millennials, between $5 and $15 (Wolf, Carpenter, & Qeunani-Petrela, 2005). Bottles were chosen with traditional and nontraditional labeling (Wolf & Thomas, 2007). It is hypothesized that the most expensive bottle will be ranked significantly higher in taste and likelihood to purchase, and the control will estimate the price of the traditionally labelled bottle to be the most expensive. We expect to find that both groups are more likely to purchase the non-traditionally labelled bottle. These findings would underscore the importance of price in millennial decision making, as well as preferred label style.