Wine, smartphones and geotraceability
Published 18 November 2011
Sing Wang in Toulouse
Sing Wang, a Taiwanese student on Lancaster's MSc in Advanced Marketing Management has been investigating how smart phone technologies might be used to give consumers more information on the geotraceability of wines.
The project client was Geowine, an EU-sponsored project involving a range of commercial and academic partners, including technology-based companies and a French wine producer. The project and dissertation formed the final part of Sing's MSc programme.
The Geowine project aim is to develop an innovative solution involving tracing wine bottles from the vineyard to the bottle on a retailer’s shelf. Authentication is provided by a unique and tamper-proof Bubble Tag™ and consumers can access information on a wine bottle using a smartphone capable of reading Data Matrix codes. The code allows consumers to browse a range of information about the wine, the terroir and the producer on a website.
“The organisational purpose of my study,” explains Sing, “focused on how wine consumers in the UK might react to this innovation in a wine purchasing setting. I used a qualitative approach comprising focus group sessions to generate user insights. The project was distinctive in integrating different marketing realms such as wine consumer behaviour, smartphone user behaviour, point-of-sale marketing and the sociology of technology.
“This project required me to scrutinise all the aspects involved in my research and critically examine why some theories can or cannot help me in my study. I found that this was not an easy job, particularly in the early phase of my research when there was so much literature to be studied. Thanks to my supervisor’s help I finally realised how to skim the useful information and capture the core value of the theory and apply it to my study.”
Sing Wang’s project was supervised by Professor Luis Araujo and conducted in collaboration with Professor Franck Cochoy of the University of Toulouse II, who has been associated with the project from the start.
Sing Wang joined the project’s final meeting held last September in Toulouse to present the conclusions of her study. Sing concluded: “I have learned a great deal from this project as well as my dissertation. I consider it as a synthesis of all the knowledge I gained in my one-year MSc programme. The project-based dissertation gave me a chance to put a range of skills into practice and provided a very good memory of my trip to Toulouse in France.”
Professor Cochoy said: “My Geowine partners and I greatly appreciated Sing’s professionalism, enthusiasm, and the international input she brought to the understanding of consumer's acceptance of the Geowine project.”
For Professor Araujo too, this was a very successful project: “We are very grateful to the Geowine project partners for this opportunity. Sing was an excellent ambassador for the MSc in Advanced Marketing Management and we are very proud of her.”
