Lessons from Italian Youngsters: how to deal with wine complexity by marketing management

Factors and constraints affecting wine purchasing decisions are numerous, since wine is extraordinarily rich in both intrinsic and extrinsic attributes, material and immaterial characteristics, as well as functional and symbolic traits which influence the quality perceived by consumers. These conditions reflect themselves in the complexity of consumer purchasing behaviour for wine. The paper aims to investigate the purchasing behaviour for wine of Italian students, whose age is comprised between 19 and 29 years. The study postulates that, even if wine belongs to the country culture heritage and represents an inherent element of people life, young consumers are quite confused about it and a cognitive mismatch reduces the probability of wine purchase within this consumer category. The survey highlights that the “cognitive complexity” of wine prevents young consumers from buying and drinking wine compared with other “easier” alcoholic beverage, such as beer. The results suggest that wine producers and marketers should invest more in the “cognitive simplification” of the product to convey young consumer preferences toward wine, and eventually increase sales.