This research into the diffusion of the screw cap wine closure, a resistant innovation, began with a survey of more than 2,255 wine consumers from Australia, New Zealand and the United States; that survey was conducted by Olivier Toubia, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia University; John Hauser, Kirin Professor of Marketing and head of the Marketing Group at MIT Sloan School of Management; and Rosanna Garcia, McCarthy Family Research Fellow and an assistant professor of marketing at Northeastern University.i A component of that study was to understand why one set of consumers (in the United States) may be resistant to an innovation but another set (in Australia and New Zealand) may not be. In 2004, when the initial survey was conducted, approximately 30% of Australian wineries used screw caps on their products and more than 50% of New Zealand wineries used Stelvins, but less than 5% of U.S. wineries used this innovative closure. However, the results of this quantitative study indicated very few differences among the consumers in the three countries. Overall, respondents preferred red wine over white, preferred to buy from local national wineries rather than from international conglomerates, and preferred midpriced wines over low-priced or high-priced ones. The only significant difference between the two sets of consumers was in their preferences for the type of closure. Wine consumers in... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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