Antonia Mantonakis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Marketing at Brock University Faculty of Business, was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions about a recent study she conducted about how consumers perceive the quality of a winery and its products, based on the name of the winery.
Antonia Mantonakis described the background to the study, its methodology, and some of the findings from that study.
Thanks to Antonia Mantonakis for her time, and for the responses to the questions. They are greatly appreciated.
What was the background this study to discover whether or not the name of a winery had any effect on people’s perception of its quality?
Antonia Mantonakis: This is a popular topic in consumer research: How does the ease with which something is thought of related to how much consumers like it?
Antonia Mantonakis, Ph.D. (photo left)
What methodology did you employ for the study to measure people's perceptions?
Antonia Mantonakis: We had people read the name of a winery -- either an easy to pronounce winery name (Titakis) or a difficult to pronounce winery name (Tselepou) -- associated with a wine. Participated then evaluated their perception of the taste of the wine.
What real surprises arose from the study and its results that no one was really expecting?
Antonia Mantonakis: Well we did hypothesize that the wine associated with the more difficult-to-pronounce winery name would be associated with higher evaluations. The reason for this is that consumers tend to place a higher value on things that are rare, and this is especially the case for wine. So, we expected that a wine with a more difficult sounding name might be perceived to be superior.
Why should business people be especially concerned about their company and product names and the perceptions they carry with them?
Antonia Mantonakis: Well we have to keep in mind that this is just one study, and we used only winery names.. so any other brand would need to be examined experimentally, compared to a relatively fluent (or disfluent) name comparative name, in order to determine the boundary conditions of this finding.
What is first step a business decision maker should take toward ensuring their company name offers a good perception with their potential customers?
Antonia Mantonakis: What I would suggest is running a simple experiment! Test out different names, and see what consumers' perceptions are about those names.
What is next for Antonia Mantonakis?
Antonia Mantonakis: My research will continue to focus on these types of incidental factors that can affect a consumer's evaluation of a product or a brand.. It really is a fun and exciting part of my job as a professor at Brock University!
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