The Attitude‐Behaviour Relationship and Usage Effect in the White Wine Market

Abstract

This research evaluates attitude — behaviour relationships in the wine market by examining consumer attitudes towards six brands of white wine. This is done using a Likert style questionnaire, including brand ‘usage’ questions on a sample of 110 respondents who are a representative sample of wine consumers. The research evaluates consumer attitudes towards brand attributes, and examines the relationship they have with the usage patterns and market share of the brands. The research is a replication with extension of Ehrenberg's studies, in that a scaling technique to examine the strength of the attributes is used to further examine the attitude‐behaviour relationships. The results of the study find support for Ehrenberg's theory that there is a strong relationship between brand usage and positive attitudes towards the brand, and current brand usage and claimed intentions to buy in the future. Furthermore, there is a pattern of Double Jeopardy showing that among users, positive attitudes are fewer for small brands than big brands. The use of the scaling technique did not obtain more significant detailed information than previously used ‘free choice’ methods. The overriding managerial implication is the importance to generate actual brand ‘trial’ not simply create an image.