Cultural Marketing Challenges – Diageo’s Jen Yu: “Each Micro-Community Needs to be Represented in its Authenticity.”

Diageo, the world’s largest producer of spirits and beers,  spent US $2.5 billion in marketing in 2021, according to Statista. “At Diageo brands lead with culture,” Jennifer Yu, Vice President, Brands in Culture North America at Diageo, tells Portada. Marketing with cultural intelligence has become crucial for corporate success in Multicultural America. We conducted an interview with Yu to ask her how she does cultural marketing at the beverage giant.

Yu’s role at Diageo is new  and, in her words, aims at  “driving a unified platform where all Diageo brands can show up in one cohesive space.” An example of such a platform is the recent partnership between Diageo brands  Johnnie Walker, Tequila Don Julio, Tanqueray, & Smirnoff Pink Lemonade with House of Slay (Phillip Lim, Prabal Gurung, Laura Kim, Ezra J. William, and Tina Leung), an AAPI founded and fashion-forward collective with the mission of stopping Anti-Asian hate and discrimination.

As the Vice President, Brands in Culture North America, Yu leads a team of 12 marketers who drive the integration of the brand portfolio’s multicultural marketing efforts into a cohesive strategy and create cutting-edge initiatives uniting entertainment endeavors with strategic partnerships to launch and amplify new brand narratives. Yu and her team are part of Diageo’s Center of Marketing Excellence which, and unlike Dish and Wells Fargo, does not have media budget decision making power – it does for PR and experiential marketing-, but issues recommendations to the brand marketers in each of the product lines. “We work across the portfolio of brands driving experience, influencer and social media. We have a consultative role with brand managers and work hand in hand with them on a strategy for all brands  through one cohesive platform,” Yu says.

How Does Culture Impact Marketing?

A key challenge in cultural marketing Yu notes is “that each of the micro communities are represented in their authenticity and still can be celebrated through one unique platform.” In order to accomplish this, inclusive messages need to be crafted that touch all of Diageo’s brand portfolio, she asserts.