Raising the bar: Helping Edrington become Britain’s best premium spirits brand builders


The need to embed the Edrington Way of Brand Building​

Edrington UK is Britain’s number one whisky distributor. ​But their mission was to make their marketing team the best premium spirit brand builders in the UK.​

In 2021, Neil Skinner, Marketing Director, led the design of a new brand planning process, complete with a set of tools & frameworks to support it.​ The new process was excellent. The challenge was ensuring these new processes and tools were effectively adopted and embedded within the team. ​

Neil knew that to make it to the top, the business needed to not just invest in the brands, but to invest in the people that drive them.​

That’s where LockSmith came in. 

Brilliant Thinking, Brilliant Execution ​

While the Edrington marketing team was clearly highly capable, it became evident that their ways of working had become fragmented—an increasingly common challenge in the post-pandemic landscape.​

To make full use of the excellent new brand planning process, the team needed more than just tools; they needed the knowledge and confidence to apply them consistently and effectively over the long-term. ​

To make the marketing team the best premium spirit brand builders in the UK, our task was to equip them with a common language and set of processes that would enable them to make full use of Edrington’s brand-building framework. ​

To address this, we designed a highly-tailored, two-part programme which integrated Edrington’s new brand planning frameworks with two of our flagship training courses — Key to Brand Management and Key to Customer Marketing. ​

By focusing first on brilliant marketing thinking and then diving deep into critical execution skills needed at the point of purchase, we ensured the team could not only grasp the fundamentals but also apply them in a way that maximises their commercial impact.​

The solution

The Role of Marketing​

Our three-day end-to-end brand foundations training began with understanding The Why. ​

It essential to have a strong foundation in how marketing works to drive business performance, before you can begin to write and deliver successful marketing plans.

Core Marketing Principles ​

We curated essential marketing theories, from The Long & Short of It to Byron Sharp, and made them highly relatable through specially-designed category case studies featuring brands like Pimms and Seedlip. We use lots of breakout groups, practice & games to make these principles easily understood and applicable.​

How to be a brilliant marketer​

Leveraging a mix of our strategic thinking tools with Edrington’s live business challenges, we ensured Edrington’s marketers are super confident on how to implement their new brand planning process & tools to improve the role, impact and credibility of their team.​

Whole business buy-in​

To ensure alignment between the marketing team and senior leadership, we delivered a one-day version of the Brand Building course for the Edrington UK leadership team. This session was designed to help senior stakeholders understand the crucial role of marketing in driving business growth, as well as familiarise them with the marketers’ ways of working, including their language, processes, and tools.​

Customer marketing fundamentals ​

We started with critical customer marketing theory, helping the team understand how the key customer marketing principles integrate with the core marketing theory we covered in the Key to Brand Management training to seamlessly evolve the learning journey. ​

How to be a brilliant customer marketer​

Leveraging our expertise in the booze category, we trained the team on a highly practical customer marketing planning process, integrating Edrington’s customer segmentation and category vision. We took a comprehensive approach covering all channels, from luxury to eCommerce, to ensure the team was confident making informed commercial decisions and writing actionable strategies that consistently win. ​

There’s no point writing a brilliant plan if you can’t effectively implement it. Using best practice examples, we did a deep dive on executing brilliantly at the point of purchase, from setting execution standard and understanding promotional mechanics to learning how to work better with agency partners, from merchandisers to samplers. ​

The Triple Win ​

Commercialising plans is about more than just a great product; it’s about writing and delivering compelling sell-ins that resonate with both retailers and consumers. Integrating our expertise with Edrington’s processes, we developed a bespoke sell-in process & template to help with team unlock amazing customer sell-ins, time & time again. ​

The Impact

We are proud to have successfully integrated new processes, language, and tools at Edrington, upskilling the team to a new, high standard and ensuring every single member feels confident and well-equipped to excel. ​

We’re here to help

For more information or to book a training course, contact us at chris@locksmith.works or alex@locksmith.works. Let’s unlock your team’s potential!

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