46 The focus on attitudes
In the original model, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control influence each other. However, in the model elaborated for this study, the focus is exclusively on how social modelling, social influence (subjective norms) and availability (perceived behavioural control) influence attitudes. This change with respect to the original theory, is due to the fact that this research aims to understand how the background of individuals influences their attitudes, and not vice versa. It is accepted that attitudes can influence subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. However, studying this correlation would not add value to this research.
A second difference is the fact that in the original model attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control are all assumed to influence intentions. However, in this revision of the model attitudes are assumed to be the factor influencing the likelihood to perform a given behaviour. This is due to the fact that in this model attitudes depend on availability, social modelling, social influence and numerous internal variables. For this reason, they can be considered comprehensive enough to predict individuals’ behaviour. Additionally, attitudes are defined as “feelings or opinions about something”. Therefore, attitudes perfectly reflect the purpose of this research, which is to understand consumers’ perception of organic wine. The way in which attitudes towards organic wine will be studied, is by analysing participants’ evaluations in terms of design, quality and price. The more positive these evaluations will be, the more favourable the attitude of participants towards organic wine can expected to be. In particular, Danish and Italian participants are expected to show different attitudes towards organic wine. This assumption will be better detailed by the hypothesis, discussed in the next section.
47 The results of the survey and of the neuromarketing experiment will later be triangulated to identify the drivers that can better explain participants´ perception of the organic feature.
Hypothesis 1
The underlying assumption of this entire research is that Danish students are more likely to have a positive attitude towards organic products. This can be considered a consequence of growing up in an environment where the offer of organic products is higher and where the organic matter is an important theme on the public agenda. For this reason, it is possible to assume that they will respond more positively to the organic sticker on wine bottles. In particular, Danish students are expected to evaluate the design more positively, compared to Italian ones. Therefore, the following hypothesis is derived:
HP1: On average, Danish students are more likely than Italian students to evaluate positively the design of a bottle if the organic sticker is present.
This hypothesis is also based on the fact that consumers are irrational when evaluating products on which a sign recalling specific attributes is present. A good example in this sense is the influence of brands: when evaluating products were a brand is present, consumers tend to rely on it without focusing on other attributes. Practical examples can be offered by the cases of Pepsi cola and McDonalds. The Pepsi Challenge is an initiative organised by Pepsi in which participants had to carry out a blind test on Pepsi and Coca cola: they had to sip Pepsi and Coca cola from cups without seeing the respective packaging. The majority of participants preferred Pepsi cola. However, when the experiment was repeated showing the packaging to participants before tasting the beverage, participants preferred Coca cola (Yglesias, 2013). As also Coca Cola company stated, “Pepsi Challenge is a great marketing gimmick but not a viable path to displacing the leading brand” (ibid).
In the case of McDonald’s, food critics in the Netherlands were served McDonald’s burgers without their original packaging. These hamburgers were presented as a “new, organic alternative to fast food”. The critics evaluated them as “fresh”, “delicious”, "nice and firm” and “tasty” (Telegraph, 2018). Even if these examples are related to blind tests, which are not in the scope of the present research, they perfectly demonstrate the strength of the phenomenon of recognition. For instance, the above-mentioned examples prove that, when people recognise a certain brand, evaluations are based exclusively on the meanings they attach to that brand, regardless of their real preferences. It is supposed that this phenomenon will take place during the eye tracking experiment when people will evaluate the design of organic and non-organic bottles.
48 Hypothesis 2
The organic sign will also influence the perceived quality. Therefore, it is likely that Danish students will evaluate the quality of organic wines more positively than Italian ones. For this reason, the following hypothesis is formulated:
HP2: 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.
However, the perception of quality is also swayed by the design. Additionally, it is unlikely that participants who evaluated the design positively will express a negative opinion on the quality. Given the correlation between these two variables, the following hypothesis is included:
HP2a: The evaluation of design influences the perception of high quality in a direct proportional way (the more positively the design is evaluated, the more positively the quality is evaluated).
Hypothesis 3
Lastly, Danish students are expected to demonstrate a willingness to pay an higher price for organic wines, compared to Italian students.
HP3: On average, Danish students are more likely than Italian students to demonstrate a higher willingness to pay for organic wines.
The evaluation of price is supposed to be influenced by the evaluation of perceived quality, and this is reflected in the last hypothesis:
HP3a: The evaluation of perceived quality influences the willingness to pay a premium price in a direct proportional way (the higher the perceived quality was, the higher the premium price that participants will be willing to pay)
Asking participants about their willingness to pay makes them think rationally. As a matter of fact, this question is linked to a possible loss of resources (e.g. money) which is needed to potentially buy the wine being evaluated. On the contrary, evaluations about design and quality did not imply any resources‘ loss, and therefore did not require participants to engage in a thinking process.
49 Lastly, a final remark about this hypothesis is needed: since both our target groups are composed by students, it is likely that extreme differences in terms of willingness to pay will not be observed. As a matter of fact, students do not usually have high incomes and, therefore, both groups may be not that willing to pay a premium price for organic wine.
The following graph shows how the three variables influence each other. Design influences quality which in turns influences the willingness to pay in a process which resembles a waterfall mechanism.
The organic sticker is expected to be the main factor that will create differences among evaluations and, therefore, it is placed in the centre of the graph.
Figure 6 How design, quality, and price influence each other, own elaboration (2018)