The future of Summer – the Diageo way

Imagine cooling down with your pals in the garden on a hot summer’s day just the way you did as little kids – with popsicles… except this time around, they aren’t for kids. Boozy ice popsicles are slowly becoming a thing with adults looking to cool down and still enjoy their favourite drink. While you can get by making your own just fine at home, imagine your favourite Gin, Whiskey or Vodka brand offering you this childhood treat the adult way.

But who would be brave enough to look at their brand growth strategy and decide on this route when there are other options to growing your brand?

If I were on the Diageo brand team, I would be looking into this brand extension as an area of potential when it comes to the brand’s growth strategy. With a wide range of premium spirits already in their portfolio, it wouldn’t hurt the consumer taste buds to extend their brand a little and venture into the frozen desserts space.

Brands have the option to grow their brand through brand extensions strategies, which are used to enter a new product category using a name that is already known in the market. Although the popsicles are not directly related to the existing product categories under the Diageo brand, they to rely on the base spirits and brands within the portfolio.

But before a brand can venture into launching a new extension to their existence, they need to consider the consumer and their overall brand strategy.

Venturing into new territory can be a little risky, especially when you’re really going out on a limb as brand to appease the masses and grow your profits. For Diageo, the fact that their name is not too popular at first mention with consumers may pose as a challenge with consumer reaction to their new release. However, I think the association and tie-back to their well-known brands will cushion the launch.

With these frozen desserts, the Diageo brand portfolio will be able to add another premium enjoyment experience for their consumers on a hot summer’s day or at their events – both public and private. With the company slogan being “Celebrating Life, Every Day, Everywhere”, they have the opportunity to bring more moments like these to the people.

“Our brands are crafted, authentic, relevant, luxury, with something for every taste and celebration, big or small” – Diageo[i]

On the other hand, as a global brand that is already offering different segments of their portfolio to different geographic locations, they have the added advantage of taking this extension step in increments. Diageo can mitigate a little risk by not going full force to market but testing the markets with a launch is specific geographical locations and seeing how other parts of the world are reacting. If there is a demand for the product across, then they will know what to do next. They can also make the variety dependent on each region’s portfolio presence as per with the current management of the portfolio. By doing this, they are further associating this new product to what the consumer is already familiar with within their current offering.

Extending the brand on the back of their glorious portfolio as the popsicle variants will almost naturally transfer the consumer brand associations with the new product. This will help them gain traction, while also not costing the brand too much for marketing as they incorporate into current marketing budgets to further elevate the individual brands within the portfolio without increasing spend too much.

If you haven’t already picked it up, the bonus benefit for them here is that they already have the base ingredients that would make up the variants as their current portfolio. That sounds like a job half done to me.

Building, managing and maintaining a corporate brand is no joke, especially with a vast brand portfolio to boast. But there is always room and opportunity for growth. For Diageo, some of the advantages of exploring an extension strategy of this manner would be their already well-known portfolio; increased profits and sales from the various portfolio units contributing and product variants; further awareness to the parent brand name, among others.

Consumer perspective is a key part of building “street cred” and a positive “rep” that will carry you into new ventures. With an age-old history behind them, Diageo brand portfolio is fully aware of the responsibility that comes with the promise to give consumers a premium product and enjoyment experience. This alignment at portfolio level will alleviate confusion within the brand teams as they strive to bring this promise to life with the new offering.

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