Father’s Day Data, and How It Sells Wine

A few weeks ago I wrote about micromoments, those intent-rich instances when consumers are selecting a wine to buy in a shop or drink in a restaurant or give as a gift. They’re those moments when consumers are seeking decision-influencing information such as recommendations, price comparison, and “match” to personal preferences or needs.

Micromoments are at that pivot point for wine consumers, when they choose one or over another. They’re steps along the “path to purchase,” to borrow a phrase, and lately we’ve been looking at the data that flip the light switches along that path. Micromoments are about the WHY we buy wine in the first place. What’s become clear is that the WHY is driven by the occasion.

The occasion, that is, such as a holiday. And a holiday, that is, such as Father’s Day.

So today I’d like to take a moment to pause at wine data that’s related to Father’s Day, and here are some things we can know when we analyze a data set of tens of thousands of Hello Vino app user activity records during the week leading up to Father’s Day:

• Normally, for every other holiday during the year, the app activity peaks in the days leading up to the holiday itself. On Father’s Day, however, the peak activity happens on the day of, rather than the days before.
• We know which type of wine that consumers are seeking, from red to rosé to sparkling.
• We know how those selections cross over with other buying occasions (like wine for a BBQ and wine to give as a gift) and requests for which wines to pair with popular summertime and Father’s Day foods (like steak dinners and grilled meats).
• We know where consumers are located when they’re requesting wine recommendations, such as restaurants, grocery stores, recreational areas, or residential areas.

We can also layer additional data sources onto the mobile data set, which yield insights such as consumer behavioral trends in restaurants over time, behavioral differences according to geography and market, and the success (or failure) of targeted DTC communications around this holiday.

How to Leverage the Data

Armed with this information – or parallel information for upcoming holidays like Independence Day, Labor Day, and Columbus Day – wine companies can adapt outreach strategies, prioritize offerings, target particular markets, and tailor on-premise programs.

Take your company’s marketing strategies that are oriented around food and wine pairings. Let’s say we see that the data indicates a sharp increase in wine recommendation requests for filet mignon and New York strip steak, compared to the previous four weeks’ “wine for a meal” requests. (See the Sankey -- or flow -- diagram, which shows the meat-specific food pairing recommendation activity prior to Father's Day.) This individual insight can be used by retailers for specific cross-merchandizing efforts, or by producers for messaging in both DTC and social media communications.

It becomes a matter of working smarter and creatively, especially when decisions are rooted in empirical and quantifiable data.

Enjoy Father’s Day this weekend, and our warmest wishes to all the fathers and grandfathers who are reading!