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Diageo enters into multi-mn dollar deal with Facebook
MUMBAI: Diageo, owner of brands such as Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff, has stitched a multi-million dollar deal with Facebook to drive integration, joint business planning and experimentation between the two companies.
Building on the current ad investment collaboration, the new partnership agreement will focus on driving consumer engagement with a particular focus on emerging growth markets.
Facebook will provide strategic consultancy to Diageo’s priority brands in its main creation hubs of New York, London, Amsterdam, Dublin, Sao Paulo and Singapore, ensuring that the development of consumer participation programmes are social by design.
Diageo and its roster of agencies will work closely with Facebook teams from concept development, through campaign creation to execution.
Recognising the importance of emerging growth markets to Diageo’s business, Facebook has also established local account teams in Brazil and Singapore. Facebook will also provide metrics to help Diageo define ROI and performance across its priority brands.
Diageo CMO Andy Fennell said, “Facebook has been a natural fit for us from day one. Working in such close collaboration will allow us to really maximise consumer participation at scale in our campaigns, particularly in emerging markets.
We are already seeing real value from our work in this space. Over 950 Diageo marketers around the world have now been trained in Facebook boot camps to build their social media capabilities and we are seeing significant returns on investment across a number of brands. We expect this new way of working to deliver even more commercial value for Diageo.”
Facebook VP of global marketing solutions Carolyn Everson added, “Diageo is an ideal partner because we see the world through the same lens – we put people at the center of everything we do. Working closely together has delivered some amazing results and I‘m looking forward to bringing to life some of the great things in the works across several of Diageo‘s core brands.”
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
