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

A longform narrative about a Pact was the creative solution. The narrative needed to ooze status, stylishness and sophistication. It needed to make the pact, the toast and the whisky drinking moment the embodiment of young Chinese guys personal progress. 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. The characters, their setting, their careers, their trials were all progressive. The pact and toast between them (that bound them to help Jason achieve no matter what) was highly topical in a market where leaving a successful career to follow your passion was not your parents hope and yet is very aspirational to young men. 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.

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.