Diageo Ends Brand Ambassador Program

     Diageo has announce the releasing of its brand ambassadors in the pas t weeks.  This is a major
shift in the way Diageo is going to be marketing its spirits.   This is a huge shift from how things have been done for many years.  These days the bottom line profits have been shrinking and the investors are getting nervous.  This can lead to the investors looking for different opportunities.

      "Organizational pressure is constantly put on organizations to justify expenses, and in a publicly traded company such as Diageo, they have a fiduciary responsibility to keep the bottom line tight for their investors.  So the idea of KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) were put in place for brand ambassadors in order to justify the expense of them. But the problem of KPI's is that they only rationalize expense spending, they do not touch the top line. An informal survey of KPI's across the spectrum turned up a wide range of targets, even down to getting one’s expenses in on time and posting on social media. Really? When there’s a blip in the overall revenues of a company, the executives get nervous and if it trends, they immediately go after the bottom line. Departments are ordered to tighten up, cut expenses, lay off people if you have to until things get rosy again. When one Instagram entry can reach 1000 times of what one seminar can do, it doesn’t take long for upper management to start seeing each person in the field differently."

     "My best goes to all the currently out-of-work members of the Masters of Whiskey program: if you have contacts and value, you’ll find work again in the industry.  If not, it’s a big wonderful world out there waiting for you to try something different.  But one proviso: don’t get burned a second time.  This was your and everyone else’s wake-up call and it is one that I believe will continue to ring well into the new year."
Read More at https://www.alcoholprofessor.com/blog/2016/08/16/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-brand-ambassador/

     The seminars, tasting and events at the different customers locations are an expensive proposition.  The social media is providing a means to get the message out in a very economical method to get the brand image and story out to the public.  I have seen the signs of this coming for quite some time.   I am a freelance ambassador for several rums, and do events here in the Florida Keys.  There are fewer and fewer of these events happening and more and more emphasis being put on the social media to provide the public with the seminars that were once being done live by the ambassadors.  Sorry to see this happening, because it is putting a lot of very talented people out of work.