How Diageo is adapting to the ‘changing face of socialising’
At-home ‘theatre’ and digital technology are two socialising trends that Diageo will be keeping an eye on during 2017 as the drinks giant looks at how it can create innovative products and market its brands in a rapidly changing social environment.
Diageo
As part of a new report series named Diageo Futures, the maker of Gordon’s and Guinness today released a report that identifies three main social trends it expects to see in the coming year, including, ‘socialising is becoming increasingly spontaneous and experimental’; ‘the home is turning into a place to create extraordinary experiences for friends and family’ and ‘consumers want greater control and choice over what goes into their body, without compromising on excitement and experience’.
While Diageo is already leveraging some of these trends through initiatives such as The Johnnie Walker digital mentorship programme, which educates consumers about whiskey, the trends will impact how it markets its brands in 2017.
While it is keeping details of that strategy under wraps, Diageo’s global future and culture planning director Zoe Lazarus told The Drum it is “very much embracing” the learnings from the report.
“Suffice to say we are working on many ways of driving this learning in to all areas of our organisation across marketing, NPD, experiences,” she said. “We are very much embracing the learnings from this report and driving them in to all areas of the business and over the next year you will start to see more evidence of Diageo taking on board some of those trends.”
Virtual reality is one areas Diageo is looking to invest further in as the number of active VR users swells to reach 171 million by 2018. The drinks maker has already has already experimented in the field with an immersive VR adventure that allows whisky fans to discover the flavours of its Singleton whisky brands, and is now looking how it can further enhance drinking experiences with virtual technology.
“As the technology evolves you can imagine how people might spend even more time socialising virtually,” said Lazarus. “This will become much larger and more involved and more immersive and potentially create a natural space for alcohol brands, so this is something that we have already started to investigate and will be doing more of this year.”