Opinion leaders as a segment for marketing communications

Opinion leaders are important disseminators of information. Considers their relevance to the marketing of wine by assessing whether they are a reachable segment with respect to their demography and information needs. The importance of information from articles, books and television programmes is significantly associated with opinion leadership status. Furthermore, opinion leadership status is significantly associated with technical information on wines. This group, who tend to be the “heavy” buyers, is an important segment on whom producers should focus their attentions. Identifying them, however, cannot be undertaken demographically but, rather, they should be isolated by their information‐seeking behaviour. Targeting them by ensuring a constant flow of wine journalism of a more technical nature will feed their quest for information with which to impress and/or influence others.