During a recent interview with Earn Your Leisure, Diddy discussed the success of Ciroc. He recalled telling Diageo that he wanted to turn Ciroc around, sharing that he didn't want it to be "pigeonholed." He also explained how that happened to him previously with Sean John, and he was hoping not to go through it again. Unfortunately, Diddy eventually wound up suing Diageo in May, for allegedly failing to properly market the vodka.
"I was called to have a meeting with Diageo," Diddy began. "They knew that I was kind of killing things in the culture and they were trying to fix their diversity problem and through that, a meeting was set up.” He went on, “I told them, you know, ‘I want to be an owner and that I have these ideas from promoting parties at Howard’ – just remembering that I would always get the door and never get the bar. So I said: ‘I have aspirations to have Black-owned brands owned by Black people behind the bar and a part of your organization.’"
Diddy Describes Turning Ciroc Around
“I’m looking at their portfolio and they said we could start something from scratch," Diddy then explained. "But I’m looking at their portfolio and I remember one night I was having a great, great time with Ciroc. I had some Ciroc, it was made by grapes and I remember the light bulb went off in my head. I said: ‘I don’t want to wait and develop nothing. Let me show you what I could do with Ciroc. Let me show you how I could turn your revenue around.'”
“They were losing $40 million a year," Diddy also revealed. "I went and turned it around and took it to 2.6 million cases from 40,000 cases. This is something that’s never been done! And so 15 years later, even though I had that success, I was always fighting for Ciroc not to be pigeonholed – not to be pigeonholed as a Black brand, not to be pigeonholed as an urban brand. I already went through that!" He then went on to share how he was pigeonholed with his brand Sean John. "So with Ciroc, it was the same thing getting into the spirits industry. No matter what industry I went into, I always came up against this ceiling that they just wanted to keep me in the color section.” Keep an eye on HNHH for more updates on Diddy.