Hypotheses

The main trend is related to the TTFF of the AOIs on the organic sign: Danes looked at the organic sign of each bottle before Italians. This means that Danish respondents recognized the organic sing before Italians (IMotions, 2018). Moreover, as far as it concerns the duration, Danes spent more time looking at the organic sticker, which means that they had a high level of interest and attraction towards it (ibid). Dissimilarly from Danish participants, Italians spent more time on the entire label of the organic bottle. However, it must be taken into consideration a possible bias influencing Italian respondents: since the wines were from Italy, the label was also written in Italian. Nevertheless, the text indicating the type of wine, the producer and the controlled denomination of the wine are the only written elements in the label and they do not require a lot of time and attention to be read. Therefore, the fact that Italians tried to read the label written in their native language would not explain why they spent more time looking at the label instead of staring at the organic sign. Moreover, it can be argued that Danish participants could have tried to read the text in Italian. Being Italian a foreign language for them, they could have spent even more time than Italians looking at the entire label and trying to interpret the text. Since that did not happen, the most obvious conclusion observing TTFF and duration of fixation, is that Italians were not interested in the organic sing or were less attracted by it than Danes. In the next sections, the results related to design, quality and price will be discussed in the light of the findings discussed in this paragraph

Hypothesis 1: design

Comparing the answers of Danish and Italian participants in terms of design of organic wines, the design of two organic wines out of three (namely Franciacorta and Valpolicella), has been rated on average more positively by Danes than by Italians. The first hypothesis stated that on average, Danish students are more likely than Italian students to evaluate positively the design of a bottle if the organic sticker is present. Therefore, this hypothesis is confirmed for two out of three bottles, but not for the Soave alternatives. In this case, Danish participants probably did not like the design of the bottles of Soave. This suggests that also the design of the entire bottles may have played an important role. As a matter of fact, even if the designs were extremely similar to each other, they still presented minor differences, such as the shape, and it is possible that those differences influenced the evaluations of design itself.

Other findings

Another point must be discussed for this hypothesis. Focusing exclusively on the estimations of Danes in terms of design, they evaluated the non-organic Franciacorta and Valpolicella slightly better than

91 the respective organic versions. Since the difference between the design of the same type of wine was exclusively due to the presence of the organic sign, this finding demonstrates that the organic sticker does not actually play a key role in shaping Danish consumers’ evaluations. Further, this finding demonstrates that the premises on which the hypothesis is built should be reviewed. Indeed, basing on the market data cited in the literature review section, it was given for granted that Danish participants would have preferred the organic alternative to the non-organic one. As matter of fact, market data indicate a considerable development of the Danish organic market and a high consumption of organic products in Denmark. For this reason, it was expected that Danish participants would have been affected by the presence of the organic sign to the extent that they would have preferred the organic alternative to the non-organic one. This assumption was left implicit, but it is relevant to report that it is not supported by the data collected. This elucidation does not mean that the data included in the literature review, on which the hypotheses are based, do not represent a solid foundation for this research. Rather, this issue was addressed to show that the organic sign did not have a constant and strong effect on students’ evaluations of design. In the light of this finding, it is possible to conclude that this hypothesis finds only partial support. Indeed, Danish participants rated the design of organic wine higher than Italians. However, the organic sign does not consistently influence the evaluations of Danish participants. Indeed, they preferred the non-organic bottle´s design in two cases out of three.

Hypothesis 2: quality

As far as it regards the quality perception, another trend can be noticed. Comparing the averages of Danes and Italians, two out of three organic alternatives (Valpolicella and Soave) were evaluated better by Italians. In other words, Danish participants perceived quality as lower for two out of three organic bottles compared to Italians. Since the second hypothesis argued that on average, Danish students are more likely than Italian students to evaluate positively the quality of a specific wine if the organic sticker is present on the bottle, this hypothesis is not supported.

Additionally, comparing Danish and Italians, inconsistencies between the evaluations of design and quality emerged. As mentioned above, Danish respondents attributed a more positive score to the design of two organic bottles, but this did not influence their perception of quality. Therefore, the recognition of the organic sign and a positive evaluation of the design do not directly guarantee positive estimations of quality. The quicker recognition may simply mean that there is a higher familiarity with the organic concept, but this previous and more developed knowledge does not have any effect on the quality perception.

92 Other findings

Focusing on Danish participants, they always rated the quality of non-organic wines better than the one of organic alternatives. This trend further demonstrates that the second hypothesis does not find support. Maintaining the focus exclusively on Danish participants, their evaluations of quality can be explained basing on their estimations of design. As mentioned above, Danes preferred the design of the non-organic Franciacorta and Valpolicella compared to the respective organic alternatives.

Therefore, it is understandable why the quality of non-organic alternatives was rated as superior in two cases out of three by Danish respondents

Hypothesis 2a

In order to discuss the hypothesis 2a, Italian and Danish respondents will first be considered separately. As far as it regards Italians, there is no consistency between their evaluations of design and quality. In other words, when they preferred the design of the organic alternative, then they rated the quality of the non-organic alternative as superior. Meanwhile, when they showed a preference for the non-organic wine’s design, then they rated better the quality of the organic alternative. The same happened for Danish respondents in the case of Soave. In the other two cases (Franciacorta and Valpolicella), both the design and the quality of the non-organic alternative were preferred. However, these two cases do not represent an evidence strong enough to state that design influenced consistently the perceived quality. Additionally, comparing Danish and Italian respondents, Danes rated the design of organic wines better in two cases. However, Danes considered the quality of the organic bottle superior than the non-organic one only in the case of Soave. In other words, Italians rated the quality of organic wines better than Danes in two cases out of three. These observations confirm that there is no empirical support for the hypothesis 2a, stating that: the evaluation of design influences the perception of high quality in a direct proportional way.

Hypothesis 3: price

Comparing the willingness to pay of Danish and Italian respondents for organic wines, only the price of one organic wine (Soave) was evaluated more positively by Danes. In other words, Italians attributed to organic Franciacorta and Valpolicella a price slightly higher than the one attributed by Danes. The third hypothesis stated that on average, Danish students are more likely than Italian students to demonstrate a higher willingness to pay for organic wines. Therefore, this hypothesis is not supported.

93 Other findings

To further investigate the role of the organic sign in price’s evaluations, the responses of Danes and Italians will be considered separately. To reach a deeper level of understanding, the difference between the price attributed to the organic wine and the price attributed to the non-organic wine was calculated. As mentioned in the analysis, this difference is calculated as:

Δ = P organic wine – P non-organic wine

As a consequence, a negative difference implies that the price attributed to the non-organic alternative is higher than the one assigned to respective the organic one.

Considering Italians, the delta was always negative, meaning that Italians constantly attributed a higher price to the non-organic wine than to the respective organic one. So, even if from the discussion focused on the hypotheses it could emerge that Italians are more concerned than Danes about the organic sign, this is not actually confirmed. This can lead to several conclusions. First of all, Italians are not interested in the organic feature and for this reason the organic sign does not influence their evaluations in terms of price. Consequently, they showed to be willing to pay a higher price for non-organic wine. Secondly, considering only the case of Valpolicella, an optimism bias may have influenced prices´ evaluations. According to Sharot (2011), optimism bias is defined as the difference between a person's expectation and the outcome that follows. The bias is optimistic if expectations are better than reality. On the contrary, the bias is pessimistic if reality is better than expected. Italians rated the quality of the organic Valpolicella higher than the one of the non-organic alternative and after that they sip a bit of wine (always the same for every bottle) before rating the price. If they perceived the organic Valpolicella as a high-quality wine but the taste did not match their expectations, the optimism bias influenced their evaluations. In other words, disappointment may have lead them to attribute to the organic Valpolicella a lower price than the non-organic one.

Focusing on Danish respondents, for two out of three wines the delta calculated as mentioned above is slightly positive. Therefore, considering exclusively the evaluations of Danes, the organic sign positively influenced price evaluations. However, since Danes on average are less willing to pay than Italians, the role of the organic sign was not strong enough to reflect the cultural difference between Danes and Italians. In conclusion, as it was the case for the first hypothesis, also this one finds only partial support.

94 Hypothesis 3a

Due to the absence of trends in terms of quality and willingness to pay, it can be concluded that quality and willingness to pay are not directly related. Indeed, considering Italian respondents and all the three types of wines, the evaluations of quality and price were not directly proportional: if they rated better the quality of an organic wine, then they rated its price as lower compared to the non-organic alternative, or vice versa. The same happened in two cases out of three considering Danish respondents. Since the hypothesis stated that the evaluation of perceived quality influences the willingness to pay in a direct proportional way, the hypothesis 3a is not supported.