From Vice to Virtue: Disentangling Consumer Engagement With Regular and Innovative Wine and Meat Products

This paper aims to better understand how consumers navigate their attitudes and behaviour towards vice and virtuous products through the Theories of Customer Perceived Value and Consumer Engagement. Recent societal shifts, which have seen the surge of no- or low-alcohol wines and plant-based meat (PBM), among other products, provide an ideal context to test the hypotheses. We collected data from a representative sample of 665 Australian consumers in June 2023, including drinkers, abstainers, meat eaters and vegetarians. First, the results show that no-alcohol wines and PBM are significantly more virtuous than their counterparts. Second, if consumers believe that health benefits are associated with no-alcohol wine, PBM and regular meat, they are more likely to perceive value in those products. When comparing consumer groups – specifically meat eaters and vegetarians – it was found that social norms have a positive influence for meat eaters on the perceived value of PBM compared to vegetarians. Additionally, neophobia negatively impacts the perceived value of regular wine more compared to no-alcohol wine in consumers. Third, perceived value influences various dimensions of consumer engagement and purchase intent, but more for regular wine compared to no-alcohol wine.