Promoting brand insight and internal engagement within one the world's leading drinks companies

The whisk(e)y portfolio of Pernod Ricard is wide ranging, containing over 75 whisk(e)y brands. These cater for different audiences, tastes, drinking cultures and aspirations – the brands all have their own unique nuances and sophistications.

Pernod Ricard places huge importance on internal sharing and engagement to enable authentic brand storytelling. Faced with the prospect of sharing information in a traditional format (InDesign styled factsheets combined with structured Excel sheets) the insight team felt a need to create something that could do this as well as engage varying brand teams located across different regions and continents, quickly and efficiently.

Creating a specification

Following a client recommendation, we were appointed to consult with Pernod Ricard and look at potential methods of delivering this important content to a diverse audience. Through our process of workshopping and modelling we worked alongside the Pernod Ricard team to help conceive a brief and specification for a digital tool that covered key points of use, including:

• Producing a simple digital tool that made modifying individual brand details and information quick, easy and economical

• A secure configuration with Pernod Ricard restricted access and user management

• The ability to present various details across the whisk(e)y product line

• Enabling a method that allows users to 'favourite' and create their own unique portfolio of whisk(e)y brands that they were interested in

• A concise overview of core brand positioning and statistics

Building an MVP

With a business-objective led specification created and utilised as a reference throughout the project, we began wireframing and prototyping the different areas of the tool, touching on each of the core points of use and planning out how the tool would perform best for users and administrators. It was decided that understanding user metrics was an important administrator requirement, whilst the content structure and relationships between whisk(e)y products within the tool and their associated pools of content needed to be planned and agreed. Different content matrix exist for presenting information which meant our Content Management System had be agile enough to allow changes to be made quickly.

Working through the prototype phase, we incorporated UI design and digital styling that supported Pernod Ricard’s brand. With a modular approach, our designers previewed design iterations gaining feedback from potential users allowing us to test various aspects of the tool.

Wordpress expertise

Our specialism as a dedicated open-source technology agency, with particular experience in utilising Wordpress as a content management system and api engine, proved essential within the creation of this tool. It enabled us to rapidly iterate through content revisions and produce a delivery architecture for the tool that was robust and flexible, without the financial overhead of a licensed solution.

Enabling engagement

Our tool has been in operation for several years and has gathered an active user base of over 600 differing brand and insight managers from across Pernod Ricard. In creating this digital product we have provided a means with which individual brand managers, often siloed in their own immediate brand concern, can actively explore and learn about the strategic positioning of other whisk(e)y brands both inside, and outside, of their market.

Results

In creating this digital product for the Pernod Ricard insights team we have accelerated their digital innovation – a key business goal – which in turn has allowed better integration and knowledge share within the business.

By empowering brand managers to have quick, easy-to-use access to cross segmentation information, this tool aids internal engagement and information update on key brand changes.

The tool support:

• Over 600 brand users

• Engagement across a global organisation

• A comprehensive portfolio of over 75 whisk(e)ys