Unique, family-owned wineries, like Munari are looking for ways to attract customers to their cellar door and educate wine lovers far and wide about the distinct qualities of amazing regions like Heathcote.
The problem
The fact that Australia is one of the world's largest wine producers means big business both abroad and at home. This makes for a healthy wine tourism industry, operating across the country's most well known wine producing regions. Despite this booming market, large dominant vineyards and tourism hot spots mean that smaller wineries, such as family-owned Munari (just north of Heathcote, Victoria), find it challenging to attract wine lovers to their cellar door and build up a following of loyal advocates.
Research
Munari approached our team with the objective of using a human centred design approach to discover insights into the needs and wants of their ideal customer groups. The first challenge was to discover who was drinking wine, what was involved in learning about and consuming wine, and what was Munari doing relative to their competitors.
65
survey respondents
survey respondents
14
individual interviews
individual interviews
Quantitative research
Our quantitative data gathering involved targeted surveys sent out to wine connoisseur groups through several social media platforms, in order to better understand the behaviours and preferences of wine lovers. Responses from 65 survey participants provided a clear picture of the reasons people consume wine, how they choose brands and varietals, and also shone light on the kinds of wine consumer archetypes that seemed to be most common.
Qualitative research
Survey data was then supported by direct interviews with a number of key consumer and industry sources. To begin, Munari provided a list of their long-time, repeat customers. We spoke with each of these individuals, in order to gain insight into what attracted them to Munari Wines, and how they came across the winery in the first place. Further interviews were conducted with specialty wine shops, professionals from larger wineries and resellers and restaurants who currently stock and promote Munari products.
“The Munari Cellar Door really looks authentic (like a farm). The wines are also made with individual character. They’re true to vintage and taste distinct from year to year.”
David – Long time Munari Wines customer
“Small wineries are more competitive if they focus on the 5%. They need to be tapped into clientele and what they want. The critical thing is branding and communicating to your optimal buying audience.”
Lucy – Wine maker and importer
“If I were them, I would focus on wines that support their Italian heritage. It sounds like they’re producing some varietals that Heathcote just isn’t known for.”
Michael – Wine reseller (previously wine wholesaler)
Contextual inquiry
No qualitative analysis would be complete without seeing the vineyard and cellar door first hand, so our team spent an afternoon visiting Heathcote and Munari Wines. The history of the company, the day-to-day management of the vines and wine production process, along with a breakdown of their cellar door tasting experience were all observed and documented first hand.
Peer analysis
Whilst in Heathcote, our team took the opportunity to visit the local Visitor Centre to find out more information on Munari's local competition. We also dropped in to The Heathcote Wine Hub, a specialty wine merchant and cafe in the heart of Heathcote, which carries the best products from many of the surrounding wineries. Our team spoke to the Wine Hub's operators to get a sense of how Munari compared to its local competition and to take stock of the other brands local brands that were available.
Synthesis
Having spoken to so many fascinating sources, the time had come to collate and synthesise the wide gamut of feedback we had documented to date. Insights from each of the interviewee categories were assembled along with our own first-hand observations.
Key Insights
Insights were organised into a broad number of categories, most of which were also surprisingly deep. The key take-aways from this organised feedback was that Munari was highly regarded by those who knew it, but challenges existed in the way they communicated their brand narrative and core benefits to their potential customers. Info about the Heathcote wine region, in general, was also found to be quite disjointed for those interested in visiting, with no organisation effectively championing information about the entire region.
Personas
Personas were developed based on several of the target groups our team had the pleasure of spending time with. We factored in restaurant owners and sommeliers, wine shop operators, and wine tourists. Whilst these groups all had an important role to play, our insights led us to develop the persona of Sarah. Sarah is the kind of core wine connoisseur that loves to explore smaller wine regions, and is willing to pay a premium for hand-crafted quality products to share with her friends and family.
Sarah's Journey
Sarah's journey was defined through the multitude of insights provided by existing Munari customers, other wine consumers, and industry professionals. Her direct experiences with Munari are generally excellent as the beauty of the vineyard location and the quality of the wines speak for themselves. Moments where pain points exist are largely those where she struggles to find a wholistic experience (e.g. food available at the cellar door) and the challenge of acquiring the wine exclusively through direct sales.
Sarah's pain points
• Sarah finds it challenging that she can't acquire Munari wines at local bottle shops or easily purchase online when she wants to stock up.
• She has been frustrated by the lack of cohesive information about Heathcote available online and through wine tourism operators.
• When visiting Heathcote, she and her friends were frustrated by the lack of food available at many local wineries, causing them to cut their visit short.
• Although she learned about Munari from a restaurant, she hasn't seen it widely available at other establishments, which she can't understand, because it's so darn good.
Opportunities for Sarah
• Evolve manual PDF-based ordering process to contemporary, automated, online process.
• Clean up the information hierarchy on the website to provide clear information and direction to different user groups including wine lovers, like Sarah, but also for restaurant owners and sommeliers.
• Leverage and promote the most interesting narratives about the history of the family, property, and the unique climate and growing conditions of the region.
• Better establish location-based services such as on-site picnic area and offer tasting platters.
How might we statement
“How might we improve the presentation of online information about Munari to encourage Sarah to engage with the brand and visit the cellar door?”
Ideation and prototyping
The data our team collected, especially those insightful recommendations from industry professionals, was used to determine the most valuable opportunities through which to help Munari effectively improve their communication to Sarah.
Ideation
So many specific recommendations and points of value were collected through our team's research that our ideation process primarily consisted of filtering the best and most common ideas out of our affinity map. These ideas were then sorted and grouped into priority pain points and opportunities, with gaps filled in by brainstorming where necessary.
Minimum viable product (MVP)
Many beneficial ideas were collated, and in order to focus on the most viable concepts, we filtered our highlighted short list through a minimum viable product matrix. The most applicable concepts with the best chance at providing short-term value were identified and prioritised.
Sitemapping and workflows
The most immediate and feasible concepts from our research lent themselves best to the revision of Munari's current website hierarchy. Service based ideas that are not currently part of Munari's offer, but were repeatedly mentioned in our research, were featured in our prototypes as a proof of concept. The navigation of their current website was re-prioritised to account for the information our research indicated was most important to Sarah and potential future Munari customers.
Low fidelity prototyping
In order to identify the pros and cons of Munari's online information hierarchy as quickly as possible, our team developed and iterated on quick sketches of a reconfigured website interface. Quick testing and feedback, along with reference to Sarah's journey and needs allowed us to re-structure the site in the clearest possible way.
Medium fidelity prototyping
Collated feedback and general consensus from a number of testing participants, led us to format our sketches into medium fidelity wireframes for more refined information structuring and further testing. Re-working these layouts allowed us to move quickly without becoming distracted by non-functional visual design decisions.
High fidelity prototyping
A newly prioritised navigation menu, clearer headings and information, consistent and directive call-to-actions, and a robust online purchasing workflow were all conceived of and included in these prototypes. In order to illustrate to the Munari team how this newly conceived information hierarchy would cater to Sarah's needs for clearer information and engaging storytelling, brand colours, typography and product imagery were incorporated into a few key pages to round out the presentation of our proof of concept.
Outcomes and next steps
Our human centred approach to research, synthesis of data, ideation and prototyping were presented to the Munari team for consideration, along with identified next steps and recommendations. Our work clearly supported many points that Munari was already aware of, along with new insights and, naturally, areas which they are interested in exploring in further detail, moving forward.
Recommendations for next steps
• Develop brand personality and narratives to evoke a strong connection with target audiences (sheep station heritage, Italian stamps featured on labels, concentrated flavour from unique Heathcote climate).
• Monetise the website to modernise the ordering process / Look into local warehousing in urban centres with drop shipping.
• Expand the Cellar Door experience to include tasting platters (on weekends) or enhance picnic space and promote BYO lunches
• Produce product reference materials for sommeliers and restaurant staff so they can easily educate their customers and promote the wine
• Produce educational content about the wine industry in/near Heathcote, in general, to position Munari as the voice of the local industry
• Work with other wineries or local businesses to organise a weekend shuttle from Heathcote to Munari and peer wineries
• Ensure positioning of Munari wines in Heathcote Wine Hub, and build a relationship with a wholesaler who works with specialist wine stores
“It's all about the taste...the grapes. Look at the big wineries for ideas. Wine cocktails, the type of bottle to fit in their cellar, the awards the wine has won. These factors will let people resonate.”
Tara – Wine industry professional
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