Case studies

Leading change by unlocking the  power of the private sector

Partnership with UNITAR for road safety

Commitment 

  • Pernod Ricard has always been committed to responsible drinking and has identified the lack of training of young drivers on the risks of drinking and driving as a major gap in road safety prevention.
  • The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) wanted to fight drink driving but lacked the capacity and tools to educate drivers

Innovation

  • Pernod Ricard and UNITAR created a digital curriculum with science-based knowledge on alcohol, its impact on the body and the ability to drive.  It had to be accessible by all, as well as being fun and engaging. 
  • Its core assets are an interactive online course on the UNITAR Learning Platform a microlearning course on the EdApp platform, and a Virtual Reality video on the UNITAR Youtube platform, all available in the national language in each country.

Collaboration and partnership

  • Pernod Ricard entered into a multi-year partnership with UNITAR to build and roll out Autosobriety to train drivers on the risks of drinking and driving.
  • In turn, UNITAR helped setting up local partnerships in the countries where the programme was implemented, to help local buy-in.

Leading to change

  • Autosobriety is present in 11 countries around the world (see UNITAR website) and will be expanded to all UNITAR training centres.
  • Recognition from a UN Agency that significant progress in the reduction of alcohol-related road crashes can only be achieved through global cooperation and engagement with all relevant actors including the private sector. 

PartnershiBuilding a Global Standards Coalition

Commitment

  • IARD wanted to address the challenge set for the private sector by the UN in its 2018 NCD Political Declaration to eliminate the marketing, advertising and sale of alcohol to minors

13

IARD member  companies

12

Advertising agencies

15

eCommerce platforms

4

Social media platforms

14

Sports Governing Bodies

70

Trade Associations

Innovation

  • Through IARD’s CEO group we reached out beyond the membership of IARD and traditional drinks producers to raise awareness and  standards across the industry and the value chain.
  • We leveraged the commercial relationships between the IARD member companies and their partners, and the collective appeal of the CEO Group, leading 13 global companies

 

Collaboration

  • IARD played the role of convenor bringing together independent groups amongst (i) social media platforms, (ii) e-commerce platforms, (iii) advertising agencies, and (iv) sports governing bodies (v) retailers 
  • Brought their collective work together to create a Global Standard Coalition, was launched with 85 company signatories

 

Leading to change

  • The GSC has created a private sector led standards movement to help reduce harmful drinking faster than regulation.
  • A concrete outcome of the GSC was the public commitments of the drinks industry, social media platforms and advertising
  •  agencies to set new standards to protect children from alcohol online marketing, including by influencers.

Employee engagement on responsible drinking

Commitment 

  • Pernod Ricard wants its employees to be the ambassadors of its commitment to responsible drinking. To that end, it was necessary to train all employees worldwide on alcohol and responsible drinking.
  • There was also a need for a specific training for sales teams who are more exposed to the consumption of alcohol in their profession.

Innovation

  • To maximise reach and buy-in , the global training was built as a MOOC on the micro-learning platform EdApp, and translated in 20 local languages. 
  • Sales training took the form of a Master presentation delivered in peer-to-peer workshops. Specific follow-up with HR teams was sometimes required.

Collaboration

  • Putting in place comprehensive employee engagement needed a cross-disciplinary working group with HR, IT, comms and public affairs departments, as well as with specific departments for targeted training (sales staff). 
  • The support of the C-Suite was essential.
  • The completion of the on-line training by all employees was a KPI for the Group’s CEO, cascaded to all Country MDs. 
  • External collaboration with experts was needed to validate the content of the training tools.

Leading to change

  • The training is now embedded in the employee onboarding process.
  • MOOC was considered best practice amongst our industry peers. A short version was shared with UNITAR on the Educat’All platform for the benefit of all Educat’All 

Setting new standards for online sale of alcohol

Commitment 

  •  With the growth of online sales and alcohol deliveries rapidly accelerating due to Covid 19, there was an urgent to build robust global responsibility standards throughout the supply chain to prevent the sale of alcohol to minors or intoxicated individuals.
  • It was an opportunity to fill a gap where regulation had not yet been developed.

Innovation

  • IARD created a set of global standards that could be accelerate the formation of a formal code in any jurisdiction.   
  • Our starting point were existing best practice national standards from Australia (co-created between Government, drinks producers and e-commerce platforms). 
  • We tested the development of the global standards with the public health community through an independently convened iterative dialogue

Collaboration

  • Working alongside Wilton Park (an executive agency of the British government), IARD convened 15 e-commerce platforms from 6 continents to develop standards all companies could sign up to.
  • The public health community was also directly involved (and invaluable) in shaping the process and standards .

Leading to change

  • The Global Standards have been shared at national level with many partners. 
  • At least 14 sets of national standards have been implemented, including a new code of practice in China led by JD.com, one of the E-Commerce partners

Digital labelling for enhanced consumer information

Commitment 

  • IARD Companies, through their CEOs Group, pledged to the DG of the WHO that all company product labels
  •  globally would carry 3 responsible drinking warnings, and calorie information.
  • Building on this industry commitment Pernod Ricard went one step further in terms of consumer information to answer growing demands from consumers and regulators for more transparency.

Innovation

  • Leveraging smartphone technology, a QR Code on the label every product refers consumers to a digital label providing them with comprehensive information, including health information, drinking guidelines, ingredients and nutrition. 
  • Each QR code is geo-localised giving country specific information (e.g. drinking guidelines) in the local language, with an English option always available.

Collaboration

  • The implementation of the logos and QR Code was led by the public affairs and Operations and Brand Company teams, working closely with Group IT for a smooth consolidation of data and label changes.
  • Marketing, consumer insights, communication, legal, and S&R leaders of all affiliates worldwide have contributed to this success. 


Leading to change

  • In 2024, a QR Code was delivered on all alcoholic beverages of the Group produced worldwide. 
  • Pernod Ricard’s eLabel was the first digital solution in the whole alcohol sector that includes localised and tailor-made information on alcohol & health and responsible drinking and is considered best practice.  
  • The solution could be easily be used for environmental sustainability information.

Creating a common industry-wide statement on health

Commitment 

  • To ensure that industry colleagues globally were more consistent, credible and confident when discussing alcohol & health
  • Importance for IARD CEOs to acknowledge legitimate public health concerns regarding alcohol & health

Innovation

  • IARD’s convening power, extensive research database (150,000 research articles) and science team’s analysis, coupled with extensive simplification resulted in simple and credible statements that CEOs could sign off, and would be used.

Collaboration

  • A small working group with diverging views on the topic drafted the initial statement.
  • A step-by-step approach to each sentence with proof points was created. All 12 IARD members sought input from the scientific teams, legal teams and communicators.


Leading to change

  • For the first time in 2018 we achieved Public alignment from the IARD CEO group on alcohol and health in the form of a first joint statement. 
  • The statement and subsequent infographic was cascaded to companies and trade associations globally creating  a consistent and credible  industry understanding of the relationship between alcohol and health.

Convening multi-stakeholder dialogues

Commitment 

  • In 2017, IARD re-started a working relationship with the WHO (after a 7 year gap) and co-convened 40 organisations for global consultations.
  • IARD engaged Wilton Park to act as a neutral convenor to understand what actions key public health stakeholders expected of the private sector.
  • The aim was to set up a global “challenge and response” mechanism to deliver on the UN mandate from the High Level meeting on NCDs 2018.

Innovation

  • Build a global level challenge and response mechanism based on the UK government’s “Responsibility Deal” from 2011-2014. 
  • Apply principles of conflict resolution to the issue of alcohol and harm by gathering all protagonists in a safe space to get a common understanding of the issues and required actions.


Collaboration

  • Working alongside and facilitated by Wilton Park (an Executive agency of the UK Foreign Office), 174 multi-sectoral stakeholders were convened (including academia, public health, UN agency, government, and NGOs) across 5 continents through a programme of 15 dialogues.


Leading to change

The dialogues resulted in: 

  • an improved understanding of the private sectors unique role in tackling the harmful use of alcohol;
  • a shared understanding of what constitutes harmful use of alcohol;
  • a set of 5 golden principles for future action for IARD companies to adhere to (signed off by CEOs);
  • new global standards for labelling, E-Commerce and influencer marketing. 

Setting the UK’s Responsibility Agenda for alcohol

The Portman Group is the UK alcoholic beverages’ self-regulator.  It’s rules are under-pinned by Government.

The Portman Group has the following role as a regulator:

  • Development, administration and evolution of the Portman Group Marketing Code of practice, and a world-leading Sports sponsorship Code
  • the provision of a free and confidential pre-launch advisory service for code signatories
  • recruitment and administrative support for an independent complaints panel (ICP)
  • setting-up a legally enforceable co-regulatory backstop with government.
  • Formal communication of ICP decisions, including advice to retailers.

The Portman Group CEO was also invited to act as Co-chair of the Responsibility Deal Alcohol Network with the following track-record:

  • leading a world-first standards raising Challenge and Response mechanism with government;
  • supporting government in defining the Challenge;
  • convening and co-ordinating industry’s Response;
  • developing innovative solutions on product and packaging, such as a pledge remove 1bn units of alcohol from the UK market in a year ;
  • a best in class Alcohol in the Workplace Policy.

The Portman Group set up and convened a ground-breaking Local Alcohol Area Partnership, including:

  • Pubwatch, Best Bar None, Purple Flag,  Community Alcohol Partnerships, Street pastors;
  • LAAPS ensured joined up thinking, and maximum impact in towns considered a priority for harms;
  • providing Government with a one-stop-shop to all the industry funded schemes.