Distill Ventures is Diageo's drinks accelerator. DV had the network and expertise to get its brands into bars, restaurants and retail, but needed help to unlock DTC online distribution.
Four problems kept coming up:
No in-house paid marketing expertise
No process to test product-market fit online or learn who was actually buying
High creative standards but limited testing bandwidth
Pressure to scale fast across markets with different alcohol ad rules
From 2018 to 2023 we ran paid social and growth for Distill Ventures portfolio brands. It started with Mr Black, DV's first brand with us, which Diageo acquired in 2022. By the end we were working across 15 brands in six markets.
1. One testing framework across the portfolio
We built a test-and-learn setup that each founder could run on their own:
Validate audiences, offers and messaging on small budgets before scaling
Report performance to DV in a consistent format
Launch Meta and Google campaigns from shared templates instead of starting from scratch
2. Creative testing at volume
Each brand got a workflow for testing 100+ new ads a month across founder-led content, UGC, brand assets, PR and celebrity/TV endorsements. We tested landing pages and listicles alongside the ads, for both list-building and conversion.
3. International rollout
We took brands into the UK, US, Australia, France, Germany and Denmark. Alcohol advertising rules differ in every one of those markets, so each launch needed its own compliance setup.
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Zoe Decool
Brand Marketing Director
"Sam and his team came onboard and immediately made an impact – implementing a clear, simple and structured process for positioning tests online before scaling."