Projecting complex categories: biodynamic wine producers’ online identity
ISSN: 1352-2752
Article publication date: 20 July 2023
Issue publication date: 1 November 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how producers of biodynamic and sustainable wine portray their brand identity online.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses an inductive approach to qualitative content analysis of wine producers’ websites. The authors use a theoretical starting point based on the categorizations literature related to institutional scripts and identity projection.
Findings
Producers adopt identity templates similar to the provenance and glory templates established in extant research. They demonstrate templates of community, quality, spirituality and sustainability, but there is a break in the templates, and they adopt a pseudo-rationalist template, avoiding detailed descriptions of practices and underpinning philosophy, leaving any references to them opaque and ambiguous. This may be due to concerns over scientific skepticism or spiritual suspicion, or anticipation of a lack of consumer knowledge.
Research limitations/implications
The geographical location of the sample poses limitations to the results of the study. However, the study provides an examination of the nuances of self-categorization as it relates to identity projection, prompting further investigation into its positive and negative potential.
Practical implications
Research on the connection between quality perceptions and experience and credence attributes suggests producers should do more to emphasize the philosophy underpinning biodynamics.
Originality/value
The study contributes to research on marketing for inherently sustainable producers who may suffer potential negative reactions in general and biodynamic wine producers in particular. This study provides nuance to the understanding of negative reactions to novel and innovative wine production practices.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the participants of the 2017 Corporate Responsibility Research Conference in Seville, Spain, the 2018 North American Congress on Social and Environmental Accounting Research in Toronto, Canada and the 2019 Administrative Sciences Association of Canada Accounting Division Keynote Address in St. Catharines, Canada for their supportive feedback and comments on earlier versions of this paper. The authors would also like to thank Michael Gonari for his research assistance.
Citation
Fox, K.A. and Wilson, G.A. (2023), "Projecting complex categories: biodynamic wine producers’ online identity", Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 26 No. 5, pp. 579-599. https://doi.org/10.1108/QMR-06-2022-0095
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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