Where Old Meets the New at beyond the Glass: An analysis of the effect of internet and social media on consumers’ purchase intentions for luxury wine brands

In the digital world, whether it is a novel product or a decade old wine, most products and brands have a presence on social media (SM) to keep up with the dynamic trends of the business environment (Berthon et al., 2012; Vries et al., 2012). While the literature does not provide sufficient evidence with regards to the use and the effects of internet and SM on the wine sector (Thach, 2009), luxury wines are one of the few industries that have failed to adopt internet and SM into their marketing strategies and consistently failed to enjoy profits from such opportunity (Arana, 2016). Grounded on that, the aim of this research is to examine the influence of internet and SM on luxury wine brands’ consumers’ purchase intentions. Following the critical examination of the literature review, to achieve the research objectives, this study employed a mixed-method approach in the data collection. For the qualitative research, four semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with leading luxury wine brand managers to deliver insights into the phenomena. The qualitative data revealed that the managers see internet and SM as an important opportunity for better communication, internalisation and an exceptional source of information. However, the authenticity of the luxury wine brands has elevated questions with regards to the suitability of the digital platforms and managers advocated that SM activities should be handled with extreme care. With some reservations, the managers further suggest that effective use of digital platforms can prove direct return for luxury wine brands in terms of brand visibility and awareness, but an indirect return in terms of brand loyalty, brand equity, purchase intentions and sales. The quantitative phase of the research was achieved via an online survey with 282 respondents. The survey aims to analyse the influence of internet and SM on luxury wine brand consumers’ purchase intentions. The regression analysis result shows that consumers’ positive attitudes towards SMM activities of luxury wine brands impact the overall consumers’ purchase intentions for luxury wine brands positively (β=0.499, t=9.150, p