Diageo is a multinational producer of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, operating in more than 180 countries worldwide. The company accounts for around 20% of the global spirits market and distributes approximately 40% of all Scotch whisky internationally.
Formed through the merger of Guinness PLC and Grand Metropolitan in 1997, Diageo has pursued a deliberate growth strategy built on multiple acquisitions, including Seagram in Canada, as well as spirits businesses in Turkey and Brazil. As a result, the company recently operated four separate product information management (PIM) solutions.
While this complexity reflects Diageo’s successful expansion, it also highlighted the need for a more unified and scalable foundation, which ultimately shaped its transformation with Stibo Systems.
Challenges
Changing buyer journeys demand stronger data foundations
As an alcohol manufacturer, Diageo faces significant regulatory oversight, with requirements that differ across markets and authorities. As ecommerce gained traction, new digital commerce rules added complexity to how products could be presented and sold online. During the COVID pandemic, online visibility became essential, even in markets where sales remained offline. This shift elevated the importance of reliable product data to support discovery, trust and compliance with local regulations.
Omnichannel marketing and sales are not new, but the wide variation in alcohol sales regulations made it difficult for Diageo to understand how these models impacted sales across global markets.
While direct digital commerce accounts for less than 5% of total sales, digital influence extends far beyond the transaction itself. Today, digitally influenced sales represent 43% of the market and are growing at the fastest rate of 11%. This shift highlights the holistic value of connected commerce, positioning digital not solely as a sales channel, but as a powerful driver of consumer influence across the entire path to purchase.
Globally, connected commerce underscores a rapid shift in consumer behavior. The pandemic accelerated digital adoption, and as consumer sentiment stabilized, omnichannel engagement has become the norm. Looking ahead, connected commerce is expected to continue its strong growth. To sustain this momentum and support future growth, Diageo needed to move beyond a fragmented technology landscape and address a growing burden of technical debt.
Growing complexity of product information
The core challenge was managing product data from four separate PIM systems. To support growth, Diageo needed accurate and timely information, delivered with a consistent brand voice across markets and languages. Legacy technology, however, made this increasingly difficult as change accelerated.
Updates had to incorporate multiple information sources, frequent product information changes, and the inherent complexity of manual processes. These factors made it difficult for local teams to maintain consistent product representation across digital shelves.
A further imperative for change emerged with the rise of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, which consumers are increasingly turning to for product recommendations and information.
“We want to become the world-class leader in terms of delivering these connected experiences. We do this with two focus areas, which is what brings content media performance data all together. One is to make sure that we are connecting the journeys because 95% of our consumers buy offline, but they’re making buying decisions online. The second is to make the perfect online store experiences for them once you have their attention.” - Prasanna Kumar, Global Digital Commerce Experience Director, Diageo
To summarize, Diageo experienced the following challenges.
- Connected commerce was not adequately supported by existing technology. Diageo’s team identified that online browsing led to offline sales, but its existing PIMs could not provide the necessary support.
- Product information, data and marketing assets could not be delivered easily or quickly. Local merchants with digital shelves needed a steady supply of timely, relevant and attractive product content.
- Existing methods for updating data and content were time-consuming. With four different PIMs, manual processes for updating content, and multiple scattered data sources and governance, local and central teams faced a heavy workload and struggled to keep information current.
Solution
Building a scalable product experience foundation
The team at Diageo needed to build a business case for its Product Experience Management (PXM) Programme. Operating a single source of truth for product data would allow the company to maximize its connected commerce opportunities and help its retail and off-sale partners around the world display Diageo’s products more easily.
To get the project approved by management, the team showed the cost and time efficiencies they would realize when updating channels across multiple markets, as well as incremental improvements consumers would experience when browsing digital shelves before buying offline. The end result would be a higher conversion rate.
Diageo selected Product Experience Data Cloud from Stibo Systems to power its PXM Programme.
The new PXM Programme uses data held in the company’s SAP environment and references product images via URLs from the company’s digital asset management (DAM) hub. These asset links are associated with the correct products and managed within Stibo Systems PIM. Global brand teams manage reusable product assets in the Global PIM, while local market teams enrich the information with market specific marketing copy, content and metadata before publishing to their digital shelves. This creates reusable product collateral that local teams can tailor with market-specific information before publishing it to their merchants’ digital shelves.
Retailers can leverage established syndication services within their markets to automate product updates, helping ensure timely, accurate and consistent product information across their digital shelves.
“One of the key success factors has been a significant reduction in time to market. We have shortened the product launch process by 49%. When combined with efficiencies from content reuse and reduced licensing costs, this has also delivered significant cost savings for the business.” - Gabriela Rozenbaum, Global PXM Lead, Diageo
Diageo has also simplified the last-mile distribution of content to merchants. Some already use machine-to-machine integration to update digital shelves, and others use syndication services mentioned earlier to update. In other markets, Diageo provides a digital catalog generated from the PIM. This serves as a self-serve catalog where retailers and distributors can access all product content available in the system, particularly in markets with more complex syndication ecosystems.
The company is also already taking steps to introduce AI translation into the new platform, starting with translation into Japanese and Spanish.
The success of the project depended on effective change management, supported by a strong operating model and continuous feedback loops that ensure local marketing teams and merchants benefit from the changes. Clearly defined key performance indicators (KPIs), tracked and communicated on an ongoing basis, gave leadership, regions and local markets a shared view of progress.
“We have already onboarded most of our priority markets. That means the PIM is not only live, but that the majority of key products in each market are fully updated and available in the system.” - Gabriela Rozenbaum, Global PXM Lead, Diageo
Local teams are trained to manage their product portfolios, while the global team provides governance, guidance and ongoing support through clear roles, structured reporting and standardized processes.
Diageo has realized the following benefits as a result of its PXM Programme:
- Improved connected commerce and omnichannel performance
- Increased operational efficiency and decreased costs
- Reduced time to market by 49%
- Faster, more accurate digital shelf updates
- Better retailer and merchant relationships and faster execution
- Product data standardized across the globe
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Summary
Taking the lead on omnichannel experiences
Diageo operated multiple PIM systems across markets, reflecting its global scale and growth over time. To better support connected commerce, the company aligned its marketing and sales channels and consolidated product data onto a unified digital foundation using the Stibo Systems Platform. This approach established a clear product content management process and enabled the global use of a single PIM.
The company’s next steps are to expand into more markets and further optimize the solution, leveraging fast-evolving AI capabilities such as agentic commerce and SEO to win on the digital shelf. At the same time, Diageo’s long-term ambition is to enable a seamless omnichannel product experience.
