JOHNNIE WALKER: THE PACT

Short List
TitleJOHNNIE WALKER: THE PACT
BrandDIAGEO
Product / ServiceWHISKY
CategoryA07. Best Use of The Internet/New Media, Including Mobile Phones, PDAs etc.
EntrantBBH ASIA PAC Singapore, SINGAPORE
Entrant Company:BBH ASIA PAC Singapore, SINGAPORE
Advertising Agency:BBH ASIA PAC Singapore, SINGAPORE
Media Agency:MINDSHARE Shanghai, CHINA

Credits

Credits

Name Company Position
Johnny Tan BBH Asia Pac Creative Director
Frances Great BBH Asia Pac Head Of Account Management
Joanne Liu BBH Asia Pac Account Director
Jasmine Huang BBH Asia Pac Account Manager
Rebecca So BBH Asia Pac Regional Head Of Print Production
Julienne Wu BBH Asia Pac Agency Tv Producer
Moviola House Production House
David Tsui Director
Christine Ip Producer
Touches Hong Kong Post Production House
Dram Music Hong Kong Music House

Results and Effectiveness

We see substantial brand image shifts across the board in China. Achieved double digit shifts against objective: to drive closer association with Johnnie Walker as a brand that inspires personal progress: - ‘Encouraging men to move forward in life’ +18% - ‘Symbol of progress’ +13% - ‘Pioneering’ +11% (SOURCE: Milward Brown tracking) - Total unique users : 7.7M - Online video gained 1.1M views via video sharing sites, and 1M views on the website. - 717,000 hours spent with the brand. (SOURCE: Diageo tracking) - In China, Sales volume grew by 7% in Q3/Q4 2008. (SOURCE: Diageo annual report 2008)

Creative Execution

The narrative featured a pact made between a group of friends, bound to support the dreams of one of the group, Jason, to become a movie director. We created 5 episodes in the story. 3 of them were cut down to 30” episodes for Television and 2 were longform episodes airing online only. We used multiple media to drive people to the full story online. Each episode had a cliffhanger that was resolved online. A large digital campaign (blog content, banner advertising, online sponsorships and digital video) linked directly to the Pact story and we advertised on DVD releases and in-bar again pointing people online. Once the final episode was launched the narrative was wrapped up with a series of digital graphic novels and online games.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Globally, the Johnnie Walker brand stands for personal progress, communicated by the famous line ‘Keep Walking’. The global advertising, whilst liked and seen as statusful, wasn’t resonating with Chinese men. They found it hard to link with the whisky drinking moment, solitary and a little cold. As a consequence, they did not connect drinking Johnnie Walker with personal progress or fully emotionally engage with the brand. In China progress is shared and the drinking moment social, hence the task was to create a link between the line ‘Keep Walking’ and the whisky drinking occasion in a way that was cognisant of how friends support each other to progress. The answer was to create a ‘Keep Walking’ toast as a symbolic pact between friends that binds them to support each other to succeed. The strategy needed to be modern, different and engaging. Something more than an ad campaign.