Advertisements for German Wine: A semiotic approach to the symbolic meaning of wine consumption Topic area: Wine media and public relations

Abstract

Wine is open to diverse, complex consumption habits and symbolism. Especially, young and low involved people tend to perceive wine consumption as offish and elite. Indeed, insights from sociological, ethnological and anthropological sources second this. However, it is so far unclear if and how the wine industry itself fosters this image. Print advertisements, as the primary means of promotion in the wine industry, may add significantly to the perception of wine. This paper discusses the development of and the images communicated by German wine advertisements presented in public as well as in special interest magazines. A sample of 1046 advertisements was collected from two German special interest magazines from the years 1995, 2000 and 2004/2005. This sample was used to quantitatively analyse the advertising environment. The major contribution of this paper, however, is the semiotic analysis of 34 advertisements for German wine. The quantitative assessment shows that, for the two publications considered, the number of wine advertisements is generally declining. However, the number of German wine advertisements is falling faster than those of other nations. The semiotic analysis identifies the major categories (1) prestige, (2) sophisticated and (3) emotional hedonism, (4) tradition/production/heritage, (5) knowledge and (6) emotion. The majority of advertisements emphasised prestigious, sophisticated images of wine consumption, supporting the already apparent symbolism. Seven representative cases are presented. This concentration on a certain image might cause consumers to develop a generic image of wine consumption rather than clear brand perceptions of particular companies, regions or nations..

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