Diageo and the NFL have completed a comprehensive spirits marketing pact, which will be the league’s first sponsorship in that category. Sources said that Diageo gets exclusivity across spirits broadly, but the sponsorship will be used to market three main Diageo brands: Smirnoff vodka, Captain Morgan flavored rum and Crown Royal whiskey. One agency source estimated the all-in cost at $30 million per year, with around half of that being rights fees.
The #StopHateForProfit movement — originally started by civil rights groups on June 17 as an ad boycott of Facebook only, limited to the month of July — has quickly turned into a broader phenomenon. Over the weekend, Starbucks and Diageo joined the growing list of major advertisers suspending all or part of their social media advertising in reaction to the increasing influence of the movement’s call for a crack-down on hate speech.
