Diageo has launched a year-long training programme for its marketers, aimed at boosting creativity.
The scheme, Creative Sparks, is designed in part to help the drinks company’s marketers make the most of Catalyst, Diageo's data and analytics tool that provides multiple data sources in a single interface to help make strategic and planning decisions to improve the efficiency of marketing spend.
Creative Sparks, which began in December 2018, has been rolled out to all 1,200 of Diageo’s marketers around the world, while the company is also running "inspiration sessions" in tandem with its agency partners.
Kathy Parker, global senior vice-president for Scotch whisky, Haig Club and premium rums at Diageo, said: "Great marketing happens when you bring together creative magic and rigorous marketing effectiveness. They go hand in hand – creative ads are more efficient at driving brand growth.
"Within Creative Sparks, we are focusing on everything from powering creativity with media to best utilising insights in campaign development, best practice in briefing, to nurturing ideas and using measurement to unlock creative."
Parker added that it was too early to comment on the results of the programme so far, but it was "driving new conversations and energy in our marketing team and, importantly, injecting more fun into our jobs".
, Diageo chief marketing officer Syl Saller argued that "data vs creativity" was a false dichotomy and that marketers needed to be both data-lovers and storytellers.
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