Conviviality, Engineered: Togetherness You Can Count at Scale.
How Pernod Ricard Turned "Togetherness" Into Operating Discipline
Pernod Ricard, the company behind Absolut, Jameson, and Martell, watched organic net sales decline 3% in FY25. US demand softened, China slowed, Asian travel retail contracted.
Standard playbook says cut brand investment, protect margin, wait for recovery.
They did the opposite. They held advertising spend at 16% of net sales and still expanded operating margin by 64 basis points while generating €1.1 billion in free cash flow, up 18% year-over-year.
The explanation sits in two words: "togetherness" and "conviviality." But unlike most corporate values, Pernod Ricard built systems to make culture executable, measurable, and tied to financial performance.
What Togetherness Actually Means
The CEO letter removes ambiguity: "We are fundamentally brand builders. The job is to nurture brands that embody community so people create and maintain rituals that carry cultural or social weight beyond the mere act of consumption."
Translation: Pernod Ricard doesn't sell drinks. It sells the social occasions drinks enable. Birthdays, promotions, reunions, first dates, moments where people choose to gather.
This isn't marketing poetry. It's operating strategy with three components:
Codified culture: Four values distilled from 1,000 employee conversations, then anchored in field stories: Grounded in the real, Fiercely authentic, Connected beyond borders, Passion for challenge. Trainable behaviors, not abstract principles.
Growth model organized around conviviality: Every commercial lever, portfolio, pricing, distribution, brand experiences, orients around moments where people gather.
Measurement infrastructure: Togetherness shows up as KPIs alongside financial metrics: responsible-hosting campaign reach (900+ million views), gender pay equity (achieved), Scope 1 & 2 emissions (down 42% vs FY22).
When togetherness is engineered, it compounds trust and margin even when conditions are difficult.
How the System Held When Sales Declined
FY25 was not easy. Sales dropped 3%. Here's what didn't happen: panic cuts to brand investment, portfolio fire sales, leadership turnover, abandoned sustainability commitments.
Here's what did happen:
Brand investment held at 16% of net sales
Resources concentrated on brands with genuine community traction
Route-to-market optimization delivered margin expansion despite top-line pressure
Culture commitments accelerated: responsible-hosting scaled, sustainability targets stayed on track
People skip a drink. They don't skip celebrations.
Responsible Hosting as Product Standard
Most alcohol companies treat responsible consumption as legal requirement. Pernod Ricard embeds it as design standard from the beginning.
The "Drink More Water" campaign reached 900+ million views in FY25, a scale proxy for behavioral reach among younger drinkers. It wasn't designed to check a box. It was designed to change behavior by making hydration part of the social ritual.
Safe hosting gets treated like product quality: planned, briefed, activated, measured.
Data Serves Craft, Doesn't Replace It
Four data-powered programs increase precision around how people gather around brands: Matrix (marketing effectiveness), Vista Rev-Up (promotional efficiency), Maestria (consumption moments mapping), D-STAR (sales execution).
Teams follow 70-80% of tool recommendations, leaving 20-30% for human intuition.
The machine handles pattern recognition. Humans handle meaning-making.
Portfolio Design: Premiumization and RTD Both Serve Togetherness
Premiumization serves existing convivial moments, people want fewer, better drinks embedded in identity and status.
RTD formats expand togetherness to new people, new places, new occasions by removing friction: no bartending skill required, portion control built in, lower price point, portable, appeals to younger consumers.
Both serve the same goal at different stages of the social funnel.
Inclusion in Stories and Numbers
FY24 culture chapter: queer bartenders building welcoming communities, African teams driving regional growth, vineyard crews protecting quality during muddy harvests.
FY25 governance metrics: gender pay equity achieved, gender-balanced top management achieved.
The pairing, lived stories plus audited numbers, removes the gap between intent and institution.
What the P&L Says About Cultural Resilience
Sales down 3%. Operating margin up 64 basis points. Brand investment maintained. Cash flow improved to €1.1 billion.
This is what resilient cultures do: flex cost and execution without sacrificing conditions for future demand.
Hard times reveal whether culture is real or rhetoric. Pernod Ricard's numbers suggest real.
The Conviviality Scorecard
What most companies don't do: report culture metrics with the same rigor as financial metrics.
Pernod Ricard's quarterly scorecard includes four items:
Responsible-hosting reach: 900+ million views (FY25)
Inclusion progress: Gender pay equity and balanced leadership both achieved (FY25)
Climate progress: Scope 1-2 down 42% vs FY22, on path to -54% by 2030
Brand-home activations: Convivial experiences created or enabled
Culture isn't soft. It's systemic. And if it matters, it gets measured.
What Other Companies Can Learn
Turn values into observable behaviors: "Grounded in the real" becomes service standards with examples, training, and recognition.
Tie culture to commercial outcomes: Togetherness is the organizing principle for portfolio, pricing, distribution, and investment decisions.
Measure culture like revenue: Hosting reach, inclusion metrics, climate progress sit alongside financial KPIs with equal rigor.
Maintain culture investment when conditions get tough: Sales declined 3%, brand investment held at 16%, and margin expanded anyway.
Use data to serve judgment: 70-80% adoption rule preserves human intuition while gaining precision.
The CEO Imperatives
If you're making culture operational:
Publish a culture scorecard quarterly alongside financials with the same rigor.
Condition spend on cultural outcomes. Preserve brand investment, but link incremental funding to measurable gains in your stated values.
Embed values in partner training. Turn abstract values into concrete behaviors distributors and retailers can execute.
Make sustainability visible in customer experience, packaging, facilities, design-for-reuse rituals.
Design products that widen participation. Use format innovation to lower friction and expand access.
Preserve human judgment in AI adoption. Teams author experiences; data informs decisions.
Bottom Line
Pernod Ricard built measurement systems that make culture auditable. They tied cultural commitments to P&L outcomes. They held brand investment during a 3% sales decline and still expanded margin.
Most companies put values on posters. Pernod Ricard put them in quarterly reports with baselines, targets, and accountability.
Togetherness works when it's counted.
