Social media marketing and wine: Naked wines case study

Social media are leading to major changes in business and consumers’ behaviour. The aim of this paper is to achieve a deeper understanding of an emerging way of involving consumers into the business development, based on their increasing willingness to assume a proactive role that goes beyond the co-creation of value - in terms of their partecipation through social marketing tools - to include financial support of producers. For this purpose we have chosen a case study approach, analysing the unique feature of Naked Wines (“NW”) experience, a prominent online wine retailer established in UK since 2008. NW consumers can choose to invest in wines, before that they are produced, financing the business of winemakers and they can have a leading role in the evaluation process (i.e. tasting and scoring) of wines. The paper is organized in four sections. In the first, we explain why and how multichannel marketing (off-line and on-line and) is used to cope with changes in consumers’ behaviour. Then, we look at the relation between wine business and the multichannel marketing in UK. The following section focus on NW in order to highlight: roles and responsibilities of two consumers’ profiles (Angels and Archangels), relationships with winemakers, and interaction devices in use (marketplace, blog, app). Finally, through the analysis of some questionnaires, administrated online to the Archangels, we attempt to investigate on their motivations, commitment and feedback, to improve NW activities in the future.