Winemaking in Southern Russia: Barriers to development and positioning strategies

Abstract

Russian wineries are currently facing the need to adapt to dynamic changes in the economic and legal environment. At the same time, they are confronted with market issues such as consumer behavior inertia and decreasing effectiveness of conventional promotion strategies. In the article, we analyze economic, institutional, consumer, and communication barriers to the development of wine brands in Southern Russia. The theoretical framework of the study covers the principles of institutional and narrative economics, marketing, sociology of consumption, and visual sociology. The research methods include content analysis and analysis of marketing information. The empirical data consist of economic statistics of the wine industry from 2018 to 2022 and the results of the analysis of 290 wine product lines manufactured by 63 enterprises in the Southern Federal District. High speed and ambivalent dynamics of institutional change can be observed in the Russian wine industry. Using the empirical data, we have identified three communication strategies (global, foreign, and local) for wine brand positioning. The results of the research show that reliance on global and foreign strategies is a common trend in Krasnodar krai, the Republic of Crimea, and the city of Sevastopol, while producers in Rostov oblast pursue the local positioning strategy. The research results contribute to the understanding of the institutional and consumer determinants of the wine market development in Russia, associated with producers’ orientation towards global and foreign positioning strategies.