diageo’s house of spirits promotion

PROJECTS

THE BRIEF

Diageo hired me to shoot their annual House of Spirits Halloween campaign. The concept was a haunted mansion with ten different rooms, each featuring a different spirit brand from their portfolio.

The challenge was making each room feel distinct and true to its brand while keeping the whole campaign visually connected. The final images needed to work across digital marketing and social platforms, and every brand team within Diageo had to sign off on their specific room.

THE PLAN

I started by developing detailed vision boards for each of the ten rooms and getting approval from each brand team through Diageo's project coordinator. Once those were locked in, I built a tight production plan to shoot all ten environments across three days without losing quality or creativity.

I brought in a beverage stylist and prop stylist, booked the studio, and ran pre-production calls to make sure everyone was aligned before we started shooting. Midway through planning, the scope expanded to include a half-day of social-specific content. I worked the additional shots into the schedule without pushing the timeline.

On set, I worked directly with the prop stylist to build out each environment, making sure the brand identity came through while keeping each room interesting and distinctive. I handled the environmental retouching myself and brought in a compositing specialist for the more complex work.

The team from Diageo and the agency told me it was one of the smoothest shoots they'd been part of. We delivered everything ahead of schedule.

THE RESULTS

The final campaign included ten fully realized brand environments that worked together as a cohesive Halloween promotion. The imagery ran as in-store displays and across Diageo's digital and social channels.

Each brand got its own moment while still feeling connected to the larger campaign, which is exactly what a multi-brand project like this needs to do.

BEHIND THE SCENES