Microstock Volume & RPI Statistics – Wine vs. Beer
Posted on November 3rd, 2009 in Analytics, lookstat, microstock | 7 Comments »
According to a June 2009 Gallup Poll of those who drink alcohol, beer is the most popular drink in the US and beats out wine & liquor as you can see in the chart below. In terms of dollar value, rough estimates from the Department of Commerce & Craft Brewer’s association put the wine industry at $30 Billion and the beer industry at $90 billion.
Relative Image Volume of Wine vs. Beer in 2008
The microstock popularity picture is very different. Images of wine outnumber those of beer by a factor of 4:1. There could be a number of factors behind this such as the fact that wine is more aspirational than beer from a marketing standpoint. (I also wonder how much of it is driven by the fact that wine may be more satisfying photograph.)
Royalties Per Image of Wine vs. Beer in 2008
The RPI numbers tell a different story. Images of beer earn 70% more than those of wine on a per-image basis. My hypothesis is that this a result of a supply/demand imbalance, especially when you take into account the overall market and preference numbers.
I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on this and to hear if this lines up with your anecdotal experience.
An interesting aside: according to Google Insights, the top search term related to wine in 2008 was ‘red wine’ and the top term for beer that year was ‘beer pong.’
7 Responses
Hi! I haven't got any beer or wine photo in my port, but this study is quite interesting and like you said it should be more appealing shooting wine photos and I agree, maybe because it brings others things like cheese, grapes, countryside, etc..! On the other way, beer is more "trashy", less stylish..! The RPI shows that the market love BEER, or like you have said it's unbalanced! I must add that I don't like both
cheers and thanks for sharing!
Good point on the cheese/grapes/countryside point. There may be a broader range of applications for wine…
It would be interesting to see regional variance in the data.
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I think the stats here need to be used in association with other data. For instance, there is an oversupply of wine grapes in Australia for 2008. This has in effect caused a lowering of wholesale prices of grapes, and a glut in the market for wine. Wholesalers react with heavier advertising to reduce their inventory. So while it may appear that a market segment is growing, sometimes it can be a reaction to environmental or supply conditions.
Great point about the macro trends playing a role. The context is always important.
Is this what you meant by regioal variance? (obtained from PicNiche –use "Wine" as search then "gi" instead of one of the stock agencies.
Search HistoryLTCountViewsSalesV/FD/FRating
WINEUS1.0076166142497285541.870.370.70
Regional interestSubregion Metro City
1.New York
2.Oregon
3.Washington
4.California
5.District of Columbia
6.Maryland
7.New Jersey
8.Colorado
9.Pennsylvania
10.Connecticut
Dan,
Google Insights is great and I use it a lot. I find it interesting that NYC has the highest # of wine searches even though Oregon, Washington & California are the better known wine producing regions. I think regional data may matter more at the national level but it may not be all that actionable from the microstock perspective. If you were setting up SEO for your own site though, NYC Wine would be something to target.
Rahul