The Challenge
How do you grow a brand, when you can’t grow sales?
Edrington, a leading luxury Scottish whisky brand owner, wanted to grow their direct-to-consumer online channel.But that didn’t mean growing sales. Whisky – especially high-end, aged whisky – is limited by its very nature.
The Edrington team tasked Nile to explore novel engagement opportunities in the digital space, and set about designing a strategy for the future.
How we helped
Edrington needed to take a leap forward.
Pivoting from being a product- and marketing-led organisation to one that was driven by experience and service was going to be a significant mindset shift. To make this sustainable, the Edrington team also had to build their internal capability.
The first challenge was internal alignment. This adjustment would ensure distributed teams were pulling in the same direction.
Through a facilitated creative workshop, we documented:
- what was known
- what was assumed
- what Edrington wanted to achieve from the research and design process
Pivoting from product-led to experience-led
Once aligned, we instituted a 360-degree approach to our foundational insight. Using one-to-one interviews combined with a diary study, we built an ethnographic picture of target customers’ daily lives. We defined ‘luxury’ and established what it meant to them in a digital context.
The Edrington design team were with us throughout this process. This framework helped to build a deeper empathy and understanding of their consumers. We also cultivated literacy in Service Design tools and methods within the design team. This knowledge provided them with the techniques and abilities to run similar research themselves in the future.
The Nile team is incredibly talented and experienced.Daniel Sedgwick, Head of Consumer Experience, Edrington
They bring real gravitas whilst still making the process of working together really easy and enjoyable.
A lasting impact
The Customer Experience Framework developed by Nile now serves as a strategic planning tool for the business. It shapes annual priorities, team offsites, internal comms and onboarding.
We permanently changed Edrington’s understanding of their online customers, opening up a space to discuss, prioritise, and execute new opportunities.
More importantly, the design team have clear customer insight and an actionable strategic design direction. And they have buy-in and strategic alignment across the board.
The project outcomes were great; the clarity, stakeholder alignment and prioritisation the Nile team brought will have value for months to come.Daniel Sedgwick, Head of Consumer Experience, Edrington
