BICsters Tackle Non-Alcoholic Spirit for Diageo
For the past two years, BIC has partnered with Diageo, a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands across spirits and beer. Headquartered in London, Diageo produces over 200 brands – old and new, large and small, global and local – that are enjoyed in more than 180 countries around the world. Diageo’s established brands include Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Baileys, Captain Morgan and Guinness. This Spring, BIC is working with Diageo once again, but this time for something completely different. Kicking off 2020, the Corporate Capstone class is taking on Diageo's first non-alcoholic distilled spirit, Seedlip.
A recent Diageo acquisition, Seedlip is not just non-alcoholic, but a new category for the company -- as it is for most of the industry. Seedlip presents a unique set of challenges in the marketplace. While non-alcoholic, Seedlip is also zero calories, sugarless, and sweetener-free with no artificial flavors. Diageo is looking to BICsters to help Seedlip stand out from their usual crowd of alcoholic beverage brands by disrupting the traditional marketing model through drivers that resonate with today’s consumer. These combined characteristics make for an even more compelling communications challenge.
On February 6th, the Diageo team of Olivia Kupfer, Senior Brand Manager, Kristina Knight, Senior Innovation Manger, and Jason Chebib, VP of Consumer Planning, presented the brief to the entire class and took questions from students. Over the course of the semester, BICsters will dive deeply into market research to uncover insights that will drive strategic communications solutions that push Seedlip’s brand positioning, “What to drink when you’re not drinking.” Diageo will return to campus on May 14th for the client pitch when teams present their campaigns.
Each Spring semester, the BIC Corporate Capstone is led by BIC Professor and Program Director Nancy R. Tag who divides students into separate communications teams to fulfill the brief of a corporate client. Past clients have been Univision, Universal Music Group, and Heineken. In the Fall semester, BICsters focus on a non-profit organization. This year, they worked on behalf of CUNY Arts to elevate the low brand awareness of this CUNY initiative which offers student passes to places such as MoMA and the Whitney, internships at arts organizations, and curricular development to CUNY faculty to insure that arts education is woven into classroom programming. Past non-profit clients have been Sandy Hook Promise, the UJA, and Columbia Children's Hospital.
