Codorníu
Turning Marketing Intuition into Evidence-Based Brand Decisions
- Brand: Codorníu
- Geographical scope: Spain
- Sector: Wine, cava, beverages, marketing effectiveness and brand measurement
The Challenge
The marketing team knew a great deal through experience, but needed a more systematic way to measure the effect of its brand actions and support decisions with facts.
Our Approach
The objective was to compare actions, understand their contribution, identify missing information and create a practical basis for improving marketing measurement.
The Impact
It also introduced a new way of making decisions, revealing opportunities to improve data mining, reporting systems and future measurement criteria.
Our Relationship
Our role was to translate experience and intuition into a practical measurement model that could support better conversations about investment, performance and future action.
The Challenges
Company
Codorníu is one of Spain’s most historic wine and cava houses, with a legacy that combines tradition, innovation and celebration.
In a company with such deep heritage, experience and intuition are valuable assets. However, the organisation also needed to strengthen its ability to evaluate marketing activity using more objective criteria.
It had to:
- Respect the company’s traditional culture
- Introduce a more fact-based decision approach
- Make marketing effects more visible
- Improve internal conversations about performance
- Identify what information was missing
- Build a basis for future measurement
Business
Marketing investment needed to be connected more clearly with results.
Codorníu wanted to understand the effectiveness of its below-the-line brand actions and use that evidence to improve future planning.
The business needed to:
- Compare actions and outcomes
- Evaluate return on marketing investment
- Identify useful performance indicators
- Improve data capture and reporting
- Support investment prioritisation
- Create a practical measurement plan
Brand
Codorníu’s brand activity contributed to visibility, preference, activation and commercial performance.
However, the company needed a clearer way to understand which actions created value, which assumptions were correct and where better evidence was required.
The brand challenge was to balance:
- Heritage and modern marketing discipline
- Intuition and evidence
- Brand-building and commercial impact
- Short-term activation and long-term value
- Existing knowledge and better measurement
Our Approach
Company and Business
We began by understanding how Codorníu planned, executed and assessed its marketing actions.
Rather than designing an abstract dashboard, we focused on a practical first step: a tool that could use available information and reveal what else would be needed.
The work considered:
- Existing marketing actions
- Below-the-line brand activity
- Available data
- Investment and outcome indicators
- Internal assumptions
- Reporting limitations
- Data-mining opportunities
- Decision-making needs
This allowed the tool to become both a measurement instrument and a learning mechanism.
Branding
The tool was designed to help Codorníu evaluate the contribution of brand-related activity more consistently.
It helped transform marketing conversations from “we believe this worked” into “this is what we can currently measure, this is what it suggests and this is what we still need to know”.
This approach supported:
- More objective brand-performance evaluation
- Better understanding of BTL actions
- Stronger links between brand activity and business results
- Identification of relevant metrics
- Clearer criteria for future marketing decisions
The aim was not to replace managerial judgement, but to give it better evidence.
Support
Measuring What the Brand Was Already Creating, our work included:
- Marketing-effectiveness assessment
- Review of available information
- Definition of measurement criteria
- Initial ROI model development
- BTL brand-activity evaluation
- Data-gap identification
- Reporting-system recommendations
- Data-mining improvement opportunities
- Decision-support framework
- Future measurement-plan guidance
ROI Tool
We developed a tool to calculate marketing return on investment, initially focused on BTL actions related to the brand.
The tool helped Codorníu organise available information and compare the relationship between activity, investment and results.
Decision Support
The model provided a first structured basis for discussing marketing effectiveness.
It allowed the team to see which assumptions could be supported, which required more evidence and where future decisions would benefit from better data.
Data and Reporting
The project identified opportunities to improve data mining, information quality and reporting systems.
This was essential because a measurement model is only as useful as the information that feeds it. Even the finest cava needs a bottle; otherwise, things get festive for the wrong reasons.
Future Improvement
The tool also helped Codorníu define a plan for improving both the metrics and the measurement system.
It created a practical starting point from which the marketing team could continue developing a more evidence-based approach.
Transformation and Growth
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The Impact
Company
The project helped Codorníu introduce a more evidence-led way of looking at marketing decisions.
It contributed to:
- A first experience of fact-based decision-making
- Greater awareness of the value of measurement
- Stronger internal conversations about performance
- A clearer understanding of data limitations
- A practical route for improving future metrics and reporting
The work respected the company’s heritage while helping it develop a more modern decision culture.
Business
The tool created a stronger basis for evaluating marketing investment.
It helped Codorníu:
- Measure the effectiveness of selected BTL actions
- Compare activity, investment and results
- Identify useful indicators
- Detect information gaps
- Improve future planning
- Prioritise better-supported decisions
The project turned marketing ROI from an abstract ambition into a usable management conversation.
Brand
Codorníu gained a clearer way to evaluate brand-related activity.
The project supported:
- More objective assessment of brand actions
- Better understanding of what the marketing team already sensed
- Stronger links between brand activity and business outcomes
- Clearer criteria for future brand investment
- A first measurement framework for continuous improvement
The brand could now be discussed not only through heritage, recognition and intuition, but also through evidence and measurable contribution.
