Diageo, data and the consumer experience
For Diageo, the multinational alcoholic drinks company whose brands include Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Baileys and Smirnoff, the consumer experience both offline and online is paramount to the business’ growth.
This is the company behind Guinness Storehouse, the largest paid-for tourist attraction in Ireland with 1.75 million people visiting every year. Now Diageo is looking to recreate that success with another of its brands: Johnnie Walker.
Diageo will be investing £150m into building a similar consumer experience in Edinburgh, the heart of scotch whisky.
“It’s something that brings our brands to life and has a real distinct impact on the way consumers can see them, and are appreciative of them,” said Ben Sutherland, Diageo’s chief digital officer, at Mediatel’s Big Day of Data this week.
In a space of new technology and endless innovation it’s easy to lose touch with the consumer, he said. Diageo therefore works to keep consumer insight and “customer obsession” at the heart of its marketing strategy.
The company also invests in training bartenders so they can provide the perfect serve every time. According to Sutherland, its the consumer’s experience of the brand that persuades them to buy again and again.
It’s not all tourist attractions and bars: Diageo is working on creating a seamless consumer journey online all the way through to purchase, as a recent audit showed that only 2% of the brand’s content globally had any purchase option.
The company is therefore looking to transform any digital touchpoint into a shopping moment – from a Google search to a piece of video content on YouTube – to ensure “no dead end journeys.”
“It is important that we, as brands and as a business, are there to facilitate that – removing friction from the purchasing journey and making buying easy,” Sutherland said.
For example, a Tanqueray Gin ad served on Twitter allowed consumers to click through to the brand store page where they could find out further information, browse products, and purchase from any e-commerce retail partner based on the consumer’s geo-location.
The key part, Sutherland said, is that consumers were given the choice of where to shop. The campaign had strong results, delivering 5x the engagement and 3x the conversion rate of the previous campaign.
Finally, given the hype, no experience-led marketing strategy would be complete without voice.
“[Voice] changes the way in which our brands are consumed, and the way in which our messages are received,” said Sutherland.
In December 2017 Diageo launched “The Bar” for Amazon Echo, a voice activated service whereby Alexa helps you to impress your friends by recommending drinks and instructing you on how to mix them.
When compared to the short-term metrics of advertising campaigns, it is very difficult to put a value on the long-term metric of consumer experience, Sutherland said.
However, “if there’s a metric for brand enjoyment… well, that’s what we want to understand.”