Driving efficiency in advertising budgets “for the sake of driving efficiency” is something that will never work in the long term, says Diageo’s marketing and innovation director for Great Britain, Ursula Mejía Melgar.

Efficiency must go hand-in-hand with effectiveness, she says.

“The equation only works if you’re driving efficiencies by being much more effective in what you do,” she says.

In recent times, efficiency has been high on the agenda for the Johnnie Walker and Guinness owner, as it faces a backdrop of a challenged spirits industry. In the company’s most recent results earlier this month, its interim CEO Nik Jhangiani told investors the company “has an opportunity to get much more for less” from its advertising spend.

Since the investor call, Diageo has announced a new permanent CEO. Sir Dave Lewis, a former marketer and CEO of Tesco, will take on the role from the beginning of 2026. It remains to be seen what stance Lewis will take on Diageo’s advertising spend, but given the pressure the spirits business faces, making the most of budget will likely continue to be a priority.

Diageo CEO outlines ‘opportunity to get much more for less’ from its advertising spend

For Mejía Melgar, achieving the company’s wider business goals such as building brands, developing markets and driving growth requires effectiveness of spend, meaning efficiency can never be seen in a vacuum.

Speaking to Marketing Week prior to the announcement of Lewis as the new CEO, Mejía Melgar notes that, for Diageo, driving effectiveness means “interrogating” the choices that the team makes with its investments. The business owns brands with long histories of driving effectiveness and has access to lots of data across the years to help inform its choices, she says.

“We know the return of investments, both short term and long term. We know what our priorities are in the market. We understand how to connect with different consumer segments,” she says.

That ethos of careful and informed decision making doesn’t just go for Diageo’s media planning, she notes, but also for its choices around driving both physical and mental availability.

“Clarity” around what are the true growth drivers across its brands is absolutely essential when it comes to driving effectiveness Mejía Melgar notes, as is creating what she terms “captivating” creative and working hard to deploy that effectively.

Effectiveness can’t rely on just AI

There has been much talk about AI and its potential to reduce the costs associated with producing advertising.

At Diageo itself, interim CEO Jhangiani set out goals for the company to reduce its advertising and promotional “development” spend, the proportion of advertising budget used to develop creative. AI has been signposted as playing a part in this by the interim boss, with him citing the technology’s ability to create different versions of creative at much lower cost and at faster speed through “virtual content studios”.

Mejía Melgar is keen to emphasise that while AI can be “a wonderful tool” that enables agility, effectiveness requires humans to be involved.

Marketing is half art and half science.

Ursula Mejía Melgar, Diageo

“The thinking needs to still be human, and I think it will always be, because in marketing, we cater to consumer emotions,” she says. “Emotions are still something that we humans understand better.”

It’s also up to human teams to leverage AI in a way that work become faster, simpler and more agile, she notes.

AI is suited to helping teams with the efficiency side of the equation, she notes, but again, effectiveness is needed to. Advertising effectiveness only comes from strong insight translated into strong creative. Once that is developed, AI can have a real impact in helping automate things like media placement; however, it is important for marketers to not lose sight of the first steps towards effectiveness, she says.

Managing the portfolio

As the marketing leader for Diageo’s GB marketer, Mejía Melgar doesn’t just have responsibility over one or two brands but is responsible for driving growth across brands for the success of the total business.

Like with driving effectiveness, successful portfolio management necessitates careful choices, she says. Making those choices requires both data-driven decision-making, but also developing a degree of intuition, she notes.

“That’s where I think marketing is half art and half science,” she says.

Portfolio management and driving successful marketing across lots of different brands requires understanding both of the trends in the specific category, but also of the drivers of choice for different products.

Do not compromise what you want most for what you want now.

Ursula Mejía Melgar, Diageo

She gives the ready-to-drink (RTD) category as an example. There are consumers who shop “in the moment” for this category, looking for a product to drink immediately, whereas there are others who buy for later. Despite both consumers buying into the same category, there are very different behaviours on display here, says Mejía Melgar.

The consumer who wants to have the RTD now, will primarily be looking for a chilled product, whereas for someone looking to consume later, this may matter less as they will most likely go home and put the product in a fridge. For this group of consumers, other considerations are more important, like how easy the product is to carry, or what the multipack pricing is like.

“Understanding those different nuances” about the occasion is crucial for marketers looking to manage a portfolio, she says. As well as informing things like the way a brand shows up in-store, it also impacts how media choices are made.

For example, for impulse products like RTDs bought to consume immediately, proximity media becomes more important, whereas for products bought to consume later, it may be more about long-term awareness driving to ensure the brand comes to mind in the right moment.

Another element to think about when managing a portfolio is balancing agility and strategy.

“There is a long-term goal, there is a short-term way,” Mejía Melgar says, who suggests marketers, “do not fall in love with the plan”.

Marketers should be prepared to adjust a plan for the environment they’re in, but not to adjust the long-term strategy they’re going after. Diageo in particular is a company that has pioneered and grown many categories as well as its own brands.

“I am ruled by the saying of, do not compromise what you want most for what you want now,” Mejía Melgar says.