In August, Hirche received a third international prize for his work, in which he analyzed sales data from almost ten thousand products. The doctoral research was supervised by a team of scientists from UniSA and Prof. Simone Loose from Hochschule Geisenheim University's Department of Wine and Beverage Business.

• Mary Kay Doctoral Disseration Awardof the 2019 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Conference in Vancouver. AMS is the world's most renowned marketing organization and publisher of JAMS with the strongest market impact factor.. Report by wallstreet:online
• Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in the category of Marketing awarded by Emerald Publishing and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) supported by the European Journal of Marketing. Report of EFMD
• Graham Arnold Prize for the best dissertation 2019 in the area of Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, International Management and International Business. UniSA News

We interviewed the prize winner and Prof. Simone Loose:

What was the research about?

Martin Hirche:

I analyzed very large datasets of sales figures to see how marketing managers can increase the sales success of their products beyond simply availability, questioning the measures on which sales success depends in addition to distribution. For example, I examined the influence of product packaging, brand types, price and sales strategies on sales success.

What do your results mean for wine?

Martin Hirche:

I also examined sales data for wine, when there's a strong corelation between availability and market share (see figure), but also examined products with a higher than average market share. As factors for this success, I have identified strong parent brands in the USA and sales in high-quality sales channels with very good product positioning. Interestingly, distribution via specialist dealers with a very large product range has tended to intensify competition and has not led to additional market share. The fact of wine being organic also has no influence on market share.

How did the cooperation with Geisenheim come about?

Simone Loose:

Martin asked very good questions during his studies in our International Wine Business degree program 2005, and we stayed in contact after he graduated. I was, naturally, happy to support Martin with references for the DAAD scholarship and a national market research project  in Australia, and, of course, I was delighted to be able to act as co-supervisor in his doctoral research.

What's next?

Martin Hirche:

I've been working at the University of Melbourne since May, researching in the area of marketing analytics and digital shifts in the wine sector.

Simone Loose:

Martin's groundbreaking methodological approach of data mining and data science is highly relevant for our analyses of the German wine market here in Geisenheim. In the future, digitalization will provide us with better data from the market, from which we can derive better recommendations for the industry using Martin's method.

Hochschule Geisenheim University congratulates Dr. Hirche and wishes him success for the future!