• Financial Times, Monday, September 19, 2011 2:52 PM

Brace yourself for a boozier Facebook. The social network and Diageo have entered into a "multimillion-dollar" advertising partnership, the Financial Times reports, calling it, "the latest move by the social networking website to form closer ties with marketers." Per the deal, Diageo is expected to work closely with Facebook on ways to better market such beverage brands as Smirnoff and Guinness to customers.

"Diageo is particularly keen to tap Facebook's large audience in emerging markets such as Brazil, where the two companies occupy the same office building in Sao Paolo," FT.com points out. For more than a year, Diageo has been using Facebook for advertising and promotions, and has reportedly found through Nielsen basket-scanning research that certain campaigns for brands including Smirnoff and Baileys boosted offline purchases by as much as 20% domestically.

"We've now said, how can we ramp this up and make it something completely innovative that sets us apart from our competitors," Kathy Parker, Diageo's SVP of global marketing and innovation, tells FT.com.

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