Welcome back. When Diageo laid out its wide-ranging turnaround plan at a Capital Markets Day last week, Wall Street focused on the goal of saving $1 billion in a restructuring that will include supply-chain work and job reductions.
For brand stewards (and packaging geeks), there were additional highlights in the granular details about bottles and cans.
John O'Keeffe, the recently installed CEO and president of Diageo North America, identified Crown Royal whiskey, Smirnoff vodka and Captain Morgan rum as "three brands in long-term decline that require some fundamental fixes." High-funnel marketing strategies are being reworked, but O'Keeffe suggested that macro turnarounds also need help on the shelf.
Take Crown Royal: "When I look at the packaging, I think we can improve a lot," O'Keeffe told investors. "On the one hand, I like the premium glass, iconic bottle that we have. On the other hand, we've cheapened it by adding a plastic cap to it. We will be rectifying that."
Inconsistent use of the brand's iconic purple is reducing Crown Royal's appeal, according to O'Keeffe. "And we further reduce that on-shelf impact by introducing a range of flavors with different colors," he said. "We need to implement a more cohesive brand identity, dialing up the iconic deluxe purple."
For Smirnoff, O'Keeffe is tackling basic utility -- bringing back the handle on its biggest bottle -- alongside shelf aesthetics. While Smirnoff will continue to be sold in glass as well as plastic to target different consumers and occasions, O'Keeffe made clear the plastic version needs a complete visual refresh:
"As I've traveled around the U.S. in the last three months, I've been struck by how poor on-shelf we look with Smirnoff. There's a number of packaging missteps that we've taken, which I'm currently undoing. We've got to move from recycled PET, which is cloudy and opaque, hard to see through, to virgin PET. Purity after all is at the heart of this proposition."
Captain Morgan's labels, meanwhile, have lost "the color and vibrancy and vitality of this brand," O'Keeffe said, while line extensions like canned Slice Coladas suffer from a diluted master-brand identity:
"I like the fact that we're getting into coladas, which is an authentic rum offering. But when you look at this packaging, I feel it doesn't pay enough rent to Captain Morgan. It doesn't amplify. In fact, you might be hard pressed to actually identify it is from Captain Morgan."
Packaging isn't entirely broken at Diageo -- O'Keeffe pointed to Don Julio 1942 tequila's FIFA and Lunar New Year bottles as examples of execution done right.
The takeaway: Even a company hunting for $1 billion in savings knows a brand turnaround can be undercut by a cheap plastic cap or an awkward pour.
Reading the Room
The booming business of audio storytelling has caught marketers' attention, the WSJ Leadership Institute's Katie Deighton reports:
Gen Z-focused dating app Hinge is bringing its "No Ordinary Love" campaign to audiobooks.
The latest iteration of the initiative, which converts real user stories into romance literature, follows a zine anthology in 2024 and a hardcover book in 2025. Five authors -- including "Margo's Got Money Troubles" author Rufi Thorpe -- have written and read short stories for the collection, which became available for free this morning on platforms including Spotify and the library app Libby.
Hinge is promoting it with video trailers and cross-posting the text to Substack for those averse to the audiobook form.
The push comes as Hinge is giving a star-pupil performance at dating conglomerate Match Group, which also owns Tinder and OkCupid. While Match reported a 1% revenue dip last quarter, Hinge's revenue jumped 22%.
The brand's momentum underscores a smooth marketing transition after founder and CEO Justin McLeod left to start an AI-driven dating app. Former CMO Jackie Jantos was promoted to the top job, and her longtime senior vice president of global communications, Tamika Young, was named chief marketing and communications officer.
The continuing "No Ordinary Love" campaign speaks to the Gen Z-led revival of the romance genre as well as the AI-era's reading-as-a-status-symbol trope. But it also lends weight to a theory I'm tracking that the short story is due a big comeback -- potentially giving brands a way into arguably one of the last advertising-free spaces in society: the bookstore.
Novel strategy: MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and author, began releasing her first new novel since 2013 as a serial on Substack.
The Magic Number
New valuation of fast-growing live shopping app Whatnot, nearly double its $11.5 billion valuation in October. Whatnot has now raised some $1.5 billion since its founding in 2019.
Rough price of Sweetgreen's limited-time niçoise salad with trendy seafood brand Fishwife. Customers receive a tin of Fishwife tuna to add to the salad themselves.
New Leaders Pod with Tarang Amin
The latest episode of WSJ Leadership Institute Presents: Leaders brings us the full conversation between e.l.f. Beauty CEO Tarang Amin and WSJ Leadership Institute President Alan Murray at Cannes Lions.
Amin discusses how he transformed a discount internet cosmetics company into a multibillion-dollar beauty powerhouse over the last 12 years, the brand's success on TikTok and the $1 billion acquisition of Hailey Bieber's Rhode Skincare.
You can watch the full interview on wsj.com, or listen to the podcast on Apple or Spotify.
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Correction: In a report on head count reductions at VideoAmp, Friday's newsletter incorrectly attributed a statement to a company spokeswoman. The statement was provided by VideoAmp CEO Tony Fagan.
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