How we used Social Transformation™ Elevating Diageo's Social Presence Across Iconic Brands

Diageo faced the need to shift from traditional marketing to a social-first approach, lacking a unified roadmap for consistent brand voice, earned media measurement, and scalable content creation. Key hurdles included fragmented data insights, inefficient publishing workflows, and the absence of credible metrics to tie social efforts to broader ROI and econometrics.

Cosmo5 Group company 1000heads began with brand-level social audits and strategy development to inform a comprehensive Social Transformation roadmap. In collaboration with Diageo’s Culture & Entertainment team, we created the ‘ICE: Intelligence for Culture & Entertainment’ program, a custom measurement and evaluation framework designed to track, optimize, and bring credibility to earned media across brands.

This evolved into implementation, where we established a robust social tech stack, content engine, and publishing workflows. These enabled brand teams to produce always-on social creative, interspersed with participatory campaigns co-created with influencers.

To broaden accessibility, we developed a centralized ICE cloud analytics solution, streamlining reporting and data sharing. So far, 27 brands across 12 European markets have been evaluated through ICE, with ongoing quarterly expansions.

The initiative transformed Diageo’s social operations, fostering a participatory brand voice and data-driven decision-making. The ICE program has been recognized with three prestigious AMEC Awards:

• GOLD for Best Use of a Measurement Framework
• GOLD for the ‘Step Change Award’ (best improvement in a measurement journey)
• PLATINUM Grand Prix for the most effective PR consultancy, communication agency, and in-house communications team campaign.

This has positioned Diageo as a leader in social media measurement and execution within the industry.