Here is a sneak preview of what guests can expect from the speakers at this afternoon’s “Wine as a social bond: Exploring wine online communities” event. We will be taking notes, cameras and .mp3 recorders to the event and plan to share some highlights with you all via this blog.
Event flyer - Wine as a Social Bond
Assoc. Prof. Barry Burgan (Head of the Business School)
Barry will provide a welcome to all attendees and provide a short background to the Business School at the University of Adelaide. He will also speak to our guests about some of the current and past wine related research projects our school has been involved with and also provide some insight into our ongoing commitment, through industry involvement across all our disciplines, to helping advance the successes of the Australian wine industry. Also a short identification each presenter.
Prof. Pascale Quester (Executive Dean, Faculty of the Professions)
Pascale is an acknowledged international authority in the area of consumer buying behaviour, with several noteworthy publications specific to the drivers of wine purchasing. She has also been involved in a number of studies related to consumer brand communities and associated ethnographic studies. She will be providing insight into how such brand ‘sub-cultures’ can be operationalised to further enhance brand commitment and loyalty and associated purchasing behaviours. This will be discussed in the context of the new ‘world’ of virtual communities and online forums of ‘consumer to consumer’ product information exchange.
Dr. Roberta Veale (Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Program Director, Post Graduate Programs)
Roberta will provide an overview of the three year GWRDC funded research project investigating the potential of wine oriented online wine based communities. This comprehensive and extensive study is comprised of several important stages involving data collection and analysis from consumers and members of the wine industry alike. Fundamental to the success of the project is the delivery of findings and implications to industry around Australia via a number of planned workshops and seminars.
Dr. Cullen Habel (Lecturer in Marketing)
A fundamental first stage of the project is an industry based survey asking members of the wine industry about their current level of involvement in online activities. Cullen will provide an overview of the components of the survey, communication of the types of information that will be collected and why and how to participate successfully.
Mr. Thomas K. Hardy (Managing Director, Thomas Hardy Wines)
The Australian wine industry faces numerous challenges in both home and international markets, with ever increasing competition and associated pressures on maintaining profits. Wine buyers, like consumers of many other products, are becoming less easy to convince by mass media advertising and traditional promotional activities. Tom will be sharing some of his own views, experiences and ideas relating to the importance of engaging wine buyers and building loyalty employing methods outside the bounds of such traditional communications channels. His reputation, experience and expertise speaks for itself and we welcome his support of this project and his encouragement to members of the wine industry to participate in the survey launched at todays event and the other scheduled activities that will take place over the next 2 years.
