Diageo

About Diageo

Diageo – the powerhouse iconic luxury spirit brands like The Singleton, Talisker, Lagavulin, Oban, needed a bold transformation for their platform Malts.com. 

As the producer of around 40% of the world’s Scotch Malts whisky; they play a major role in shaping the global beverage industry.

THE CHALLENGE

Single malts have long been steeped in tradition – images of dimly lit bars, aged wood, and solitary armchairs. Malts.com wanted to leave this firmly in the past. Our mission was clear: redefine single malt’s visual language for the modern luxury consumer, creating a new world of aspiration, discovery, and authentic connection.

They were relaunching to better meet their luxury consumers’ needs in an omnichannel environment, and needed refreshed content at scale to bring their vision to life.

Their challenges included:

• A need for speed and scale: Producing hundreds of high-quality content pieces, on time and on-budget, felt impossible.
• A brand identity not fit for purpose: The look, feel, and tone no longer resonated with today’s aspirational, diverse audience.
• Costly production processes: Traditional methods and bloated agency fees saw videos costing £30k+ and large projects topping £2m, unsustainable in today’s market.
• Underutilised platforms: Digital was treated as an eCommerce tool, missing the opportunity to create rich, engaging brand destinations.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Turning Digital Into a Luxury Experience

They needed to elevate their platform:

Taking Malts.com from a third-party-controlled shopfront to a luxury marketing destination, offering discovery, education, exclusive experiences, and direct distillery access across Diageo’s 16+ Single Malt brands and 15+ visitable distilleries. The goal was to elevate the platform to match the luxury positioning of the brands.

Diageo wanted to bridge the gap between their distillery and online teams  with a suite of content that worked seamlessly across social, CRM, and web. This included a hero video, cutdowns, and stills for Blair Athol, Oban, and Royal Lochnagar built to scale for other distilleries down the line.

The goal?

• Drive engagement across social and CRM
• Keep audiences on-site longer
• Convert online distillery visits into real-world footfall

DELIVERED

The Distillery Films – Bringing Provenance to Life

Taking viewers on an intimate journey to uncover the magic of Malt’s distilleries, we immersed them in Scotland’s majestic Highlands through first-person narratives and guided tours – capturing the essence of people, product, and provenance.

Completed in just 10 weeks with two recces, three Highland locations, 11 days of shooting, and a crew of 33.

Highland Distillery Shoots: A cinematic travelogue across 1,000 miles, capturing single malt’s journey from craft to consumer with:

• 3 x hero videos – One luxury showcase per distillery, capturing the craft, character, and surroundings.
• 12 x cutdowns – Four tailored cut down edits per distillery to maximise impact across social and digital.
• 90 x lifestyle stills – Circa x30 high quality images supplied per distillery shoot, optimised for web, CRM, email, and social.

Here’s how we made it happen. 

• Strategy & Creative Concepting – We developed a content strategy that showcased each distillery’s unique story while maintaining a consistent visual style.
• Precision Production – We leveraged highly efficient shoot planning, balancing high-end production with a cost-effective approach.
• Seamless Logistics – Shooting across multiple remote locations meant thinking smart. From sea planes to precision drone cinematography, action vehicles (featuring the odd deer!) we made sure every penny of the budget was on screen.

Logistical Challenges – This wasn’t just about capturing stunning visuals – it was about bringing together multiple stakeholders across global teams and individual distilleries. Each location had its own operational constraints, and we worked closely with Diageo’s partners to ensure they were fully on-side and that filming was seamless, non-disruptive, and fully aligned with the brand’s vision.

THE RESULTS

This project proves what can happen when insightful strategy, impactful activation, and smart production work in sync – cutting down delivery time, boosting impact, and keeping the client’s goals front and centre.

The results were off the charts:

• +1,500% increase in dwell time – Video content engagement skyrocketed from 11 seconds to over 3 minutes on average. 
• Social and video outperformed benchmarks.
• 50%+ Cost Savings – New content efficiencies cut production budgets in half while doubling creative output.
• +25% increase in engagement rate on-site.
• 186% increase in sign-up rate to the Malts community since launch.

And much more.

This project didn’t just refresh a brand, it redefined what it means to connect with a modern, luxury consumer at scale.