France's share of the US market has fallen significantly over the last year – but it is still generates the most online conversations of any country.
France: less volume but more tweets
According to the latest figures from analysts Nielsen, France and Australia have gone down 9.3% and 7.2% in terms of volume of imports into the United States in the last 12 months.
South Africa and Portugal have similarly dropped in market share.
Argentina, New Zealand and Germany have gone up, building their positions in the US market by 18.6% for Argentina, 34% for New Zealand and 10% for Germany.
The latter two have less than one percentage point of the market, but Argentina is building on a robust presence of 1.8% of the market.
Nielsen also looks at the amount of talk, or ‘buzz’ online about wine regions, analysing chat rooms, bulletin boards and social networking sites like Twitter, and classing chat as positive, negative and neutral.
According to these findings, the amount of talk France generates online far outweighs its market share.
‘The obvious challenge for French producers and agencies is to convert more of that discussion into actual purchases,’ director Danny Brager told a press conference during Vinexpo in Bordeaux.
Other countries producing producing positive buzz in disproportion to their market share are Chile, Argentina, Spain and Portugal.
Nielsen also asked wine consumers which opinions they value most, and found an overwhelming approval rating for personal recommendations and opinions posted online.
Conversely, advertisements on TV, radio or in magazines and newspapers had a very low trust rating.
Ads served in search engine results, as online banners, products placed in TV shows, ads in social networks and ads on mobile devices were given a negative rating – the majority of respondents saying they don’t trust them ‘at all’.
Written by Adam Lechmere
