Tasmanian Wine - Motivation Theory - Case Study Assessment Answer

Case Study of Tasmanian Wine Assignment

Assignment Task

Overview of Tasmanian Wine Tasmania is a state island of Australia and has been able to develop a reputation of premium wine destination. Tasmania is seen as a place whereby consumers can experience wineries, cellar doors and other wine lovers. The state has more than 160 licensed wine producers and as a result of these high competitions alongside competition from other state in Australia and other parts of the globe, wine producers are using consumer behaviour in marketing its products and services (Lewis & Lehman, 2014). This knowledge has enabled the wine producers and sellers to expand the cultural experiences related to wine.

Drinking high quality wine which attracts wine lovers, consumption of fine food which attracts fine food fanatics, as well as fine music in addition to developing various cultural events which can be attended by consumers have been argued as a logical mixture in products and experiences. These marketing strategies and effort target the middle aged, highly educated and high income market segment (Bruwer & Huang, 2012). However, in order to main the satisfaction of its consumers and improve the products and services offers, wine producers in Tasmania need to further understand the characteristics of wine lovers and wine tourists, understand what motivates them, which needs they demand and get a basis for improving experiences.

Question One: Outline the characteristics of wine connoisseurs, art enthusiasts, music lovers and fine food fanatics. What common values do they all share?

Many individuals drink wine and love enjoying a glass of wine regularly. These can be referred to as wine lovers. However, the wine lover can be categorised into different types. Wine connoisseur is one of them and involves individuals who are wine experts who have the ability to distinguish as well as differentiate different wine based on their grade, smell, taste as well as their appearance. Bruwer and Huang (2012) argue that a wine connoisseur involves a subset of the wine lover. Other categories of wine lovers include the novice, highly educated and connoisseur.

Based on literature (Bruwer et al., 2014; Lewis & Lehman, 2014) characteristic of the wine connoisseur include; continuously learn about wine, have attended a wine course in the past, consult wine magazines and books, considered highly knowledgeable about the product, and highly involved in the buying of wine. Scott (2008) argues that a wine connoisseur is regarded to be a well educated male graduate, who is interested in production as well as growing of grapes, attends wine events and consider that education on cellar door and presentation should be of very high standard. The main concern of a wine connoisseur as such is the quality of wine. Wine connoisseurs are high involvement consumers as they are motivated by pleasure they acquire from wine rather than wine's functional utility (Lewis & Lehman, 2014). Further arts, music and events provided also involve high involvement whereby consumers acquire pleasure from the product rather than the product itself.

A music lover can be argued as an individual who understand as well as appreciates music and is willing to go an extra mile at exploring the different genres of music. Like wine connoisseurs, a music lover can distinguish between the different genres of music and upon hearing music can be able to classify it. The music lover goes an extra mile to learn different aspects of music (Garcia et al., 2013). On the other hand, an art enthusiast is individuals who look at art like more than just a piece of painting but rather analyse and look into the abstract meaning which exists behind the artwork. Fine food fanatics are individual who love exploring the different dishes from different cuisines. In addition to the fine food, the food fanatics are require fine dining and look for such things as perfect ambience, classy music and food of high quality.

As illustrated in the discussion above, the characteristics of wine connoisseurs, art enthusiastic, music lovers and fine food fanatics focus on quality over quantity. A wine connoisseur will prefer a glass of wine over ten glasses while art enthusiasts will prefer viewing or owning one high quality art piece to having a gallery. The focus as such of these individuals is quality and marketing executives of these products needs to ensure that they understand this main focus and meet the demand of these consumers (Scott, 2008). Schwartz' theoretical model of relations have ten value types which individuals can have. These values include power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, security and conformity (Bruwer et al., 2014). Wine connoisseurs, art enthusiasts, music lovers and fine food fanatics can be classified as having the common values of hedonism, stimulation, and self direction. As per the model, these individuals can be argued to fall under the openness to change.

Question Two: What types of physiological needs and psychological needs do consumers satisfy when consuming wine and cultural experiences?

When consuming wine as well as the cultural experiences which come alongside it, there are different physiological and psychological needs which consumers satisfy. Wine and culture goes beyond meeting the basic needs of the consumer and meets such needs emotional connection and meeting hedonistic desires (Garcia et al., 2013). There are various physiological needs which are met through wine consumption and culture. Physiological needs are the needs which Maslow argued need to be first meet in order for an individual to live a fulfilling life. The physiological needs met by wine and culture include the fine produce as well as food tasting whereby the consumer get an opportunity to taste wine as well as food and thus their basic necessity of food is meet (Bruwer et al., 2014). Further, the individual are able to enjoy the beautiful scenery as well as enjoy heritage and thus acquire warmth. Further, the consumer is able to enjoy weekends away and acquires shelter and rest. Psychological needs also include esteem need which are further categorised as prestige and feeling accomplished. Wine consumers are argued as prestigious and they from groups for wine tasting which are exclusive to those who love wine (Scott, 2008). Physiological needs of the wine consumers are met by the producers of wine through the provision of basic biogenic needs which involves food and shelters through basic experiences in the cellar doors. According to Maslow, the physiological needs include food, water, warmth and rest.

From wine and culture, the consumer also meets their psychological needs. According to Garcia et al., (2013), these are mainly for those earning high incomes and who are highly educated. Maslow illustrated these needs as intimate relationships as well as friends. Wine and culture allows the consumer to interact socially whereby they are able to develop friendships as well as enjoy intimate relationships. Further, the wine and culture enables lovers of art, wine and music to share their passion providing them with prestigious status in the society (Tassiopoulos et al., 2004). Further through socialising and drinking of wine, individuals feel accomplished. As such, wine and culture enable these individuals to meet their psychological needs of belongingness and love needs through intimate relationships and friendships.

Question Three: Using motivation theory, explain how Tasmanian wine producers influence consumer behaviour.

According to Maslow, there are a number of hierarchical needs which need to be met for individuals. Maslow indicated this through the development of a pyramid of needs which begins with the most basic. The first level of needs from the bottom is physiological needs which include food, water, warmth and rest. The second levels are the safety needs and include security as well as safety. Safety needs and physiological needs are normally referred to as basic needs in the hierarchy of needs (Garcia et al., 2013). The third level is belongingness and love needs which are met through intimate relationships and friends. Fourth category is the esteem needs which involve prestige as well as feeling accomplished. Esteem needs and belongingness and love needs are both referred to as psychological needs (Scott, 2008). The final level is self actualisations whereby an individual have been able to achieve full potential including creative activities such as wine. These are known as self fulfilment needs. As such, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there are three major needs; the basic needs, psychological needs and self fulfilment needs.

Physiological needs of the wine consumers are met by the producers of wine through the provision of basic biogenic needs which involves food and shelters through basic experiences in the cellar doors (Bruwer et al., 2014). The wine producers in meeting basic needs such as food can take advantage of the Tasmanian cool climate, reliable rainfall, fertile soils as well as long growing seasons to provide gourmet food and beverage products (Lewis & Lehman, 2014). The environment and the climatic conditions as such allow wine producers to meet such basic needs as food (Bruwer & Buller, 2012). Further, majority of the wine producers are located near superior food growing areas and as such can be able to provide a combined food and wine experience which is attractive to the consumers.

Safety and security needs involve the environmental and social issues of Tasmania as a wine tourist destination. The area has a beautiful scenery which consumers can enjoy, good climatic conditions, rich heritage and well as political stability (Lewis & Lehman, 2014). As such, wine tourists visiting the area are able to meet their safety and security needs. With regards to love and belonging, the wine producers develop long lasting relationships with the customers. The wine producers do this through provision and offers in exclusive wine clubs, email information as well as stay connected through the use of various social media for instance Facebook. Through the social media, the wine producers are able to communicate the different products as well as cultural events taking place (Bruwer et al., 2014).

With regards to self esteem, the wine consumers are able to lose themselves and their loved ones in a different world whereby they are able to enjoy a number of experiences. For instance in Northern Tasmania, about 30 wine producers has developed a wine touring route in and around the Tamar Valley. A wine producer in this area can take advantage of the established route and engage with consumers to visit such an area. Touring a wine touring route is an achievement which can bring a lot of joy and satisfaction to wine lovers. As a result, a wine producer can be able to adequately meet these needs for their clients. The wine producers ensure that they provide high quality products, good food, art and fine music which meet the status and reputational needs of their consumers. The final need is self actualisation, whereby by targeting consumer needs and desires, the wine producer is able to ensure that the consumer achieves self fulfilment by providing a high quality wine produce as well as enriched experience. Further, Lewis and Lehman (2014) argues that Tasmania has a rich history and heritage on wine and food and as such wine and cultural tourism can thrive in the area. There have been a number of tourism campaigns of the area which have focused on an art and cultural theme. As such, cultural consumers’ interests in both art, fine food and wine can visit the area and enjoy a high level experience. This experience is a self fulfilment whereby the consumer is not only able to enjoy wine but good food, music and company.

Question Four: Given the profile of cultural consumers you have discussed in Question One, what other experiences could wine producers offer at their cellar door to attract cultural consumers? What other products could benefit from linking to the cultural consumer?

Consumers seek and purchase experiences or products which are able to meet their needs. Different people and categories of individuals have different needs and desires. Wine producers in Tasmania have already established that drinking high quality in, eating fine foods and attending cultural events is a mix of products and experiences which attract middle aged, educated as well as high income market segments (Lewis & Lehman, 2014). As such when developing the products, the wine producers need to use the profile of consumers available to them and develop more improved experiences and products which attract the cultural consumers to their cellar door. This will enable the to enhance their consumer's wine tasking experiences and also attract a wide range of consumers as well as tourists who have high aspirations and who common values are self regulation, hedonism, and stimulation. When the consumers visit the cellar doors, the wine producer can further develop a relationship which is sustainable through the use of various marketing communication tools such as wine club offers which are exclusive (Bruwer et al., 2014). Further, as majority of the wine producers are managed by the owners or the wine makers themselves, they can be able to provide in depth illustrations on the history of the winery, its objectives and thus provide a personal touch to the visit.

As such, understanding consumers is a requirement for marketers as they predict and develop products which meet the needs and motives of the consumers. As seen from the discussion in question one, many individual enjoy and love wine. Wine connoisseur is one of the classifications of a wine lover and involves individuals who are experts on taking wine and are able to differentiate wine using their grade, smell, taste and appearance. The characteristics of a wine connoisseur involves learning about wine, interested in a wine education course, consult books and magazines, know a lot about wines and buy wine regularly (Garcia et al., 2013). The characteristics of a cultural consumer involve having common value of hedonism, stimulation as well as self directions.

Based on this profile, there are a number of experiences which wine producers can offer at their cellar door in order to attract these consumers. These activities include offering wine classes as the cultural consumer is interested in learning everything about wine and understanding the different aspects of wine. Further, the wine classes enable the cultural consumers to interact with other like minded people interested in wine and wine production (Bruwer & Huang, 2012). The wine producers can also provide themes packages such as romantic packages, family packages, friends among others. For instance a family package enables cultural consumer to bring along his family and have a relaxing weekend. In such a package the wine producer needs to make sure that the desires and needs of each element of the package are taken into consideration (Bruwer & Buller, 2012). For instance in a family theme package, children will not engage in wine taking but different activities such as swimming, site seeing etc can be arranged to keep them adequately entertained as their parents enjoy wine.

Other activities which can be arranged include seasonal and gourmet food tasting festival, discount packages in accommodations as well as flights whereby the wine producers can engage with tour companies to provide such services to their clients. Another activity which wine lovers can enjoy is allowing them to make their own wine or for someone else they value. This wine they develop can be acquired in future once it matures. Special packages can be made for such cultural consumers whereby they are allowed to regularly check on their wine as it is produced until it matures. This package can offer an attractive package especially for wine connoisseur. Wine consumers seek quality over quantity and such elements as cellar door experiences, food, music, and arts are important elements to wine consumers (Garcia et al., 2013). As such in order to ensure that the needs of the consumers are met, there is need for all the elements related to these are considered and implemented into the products as well as the experiences provided by the wine producers.