PARALYMPICS CONVICTION

TitlePARALYMPICS CONVICTION
BrandJOHNNIE WALKER
Product / ServiceJOHNNIE WALKER
CategoryA10. Typography
EntrantBBH CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Entrant Company BBH CHINA Shanghai, CHINA
Advertising Agency BBH CHINA Shanghai, CHINA

Credits

Name Company Position
Finnian O Neill Bbh Head Of Account Management
Ivy Wang Bbh Art Director
Nicola Chung Bbh Art Director
Jay Qian Bbh Senior Copywriter
Jeffrey Sun Bbh Associate Creative Director
Andy Edwards Bbh Head Of Planning
Leo Zhang Bbh Creative Director
Johnny Tan Bbh Executive Creative Director

Brief Explanation

Campaign objective: to develop a voice in Chinese popular culture and give Johnnie Walker an ‘always on’ approach. Target: China’s young progressives. Drawn largely from the 80’s generation they are a questioning /outspoken group. Core message: As a counterpoint to the largely material norms of achievement in China, the work casts a new light on what it means to succeed and the qualities required to do so.

The Brief

The brief was to introduce more frequent, digitally lead tactical communications for Johnnie Walker in China in the second half of 2012 - in addition to its major 360 degree set piece campaigns – with the ambition of gaining social relevance and building cultural traction around the brand message of ‘progress. The work was centred on key Social Events to demonstrate to consumers the relevance of the brand – giving it a fresh, more impactful personality. This first chapter focused on the London 2012 Paralympics.

How the final design was conceived

For this specific Paralympics campaign, we utilised Chinese characters. Many are pictophonetic: one element in a word indicates meaning and the other, the sound e.g. characters representing action that utilise the feet, like “jump” or “stride,” all contain the strokes for “foot.” The headlines omit the set of strokes for “hand”, “foot” or “eye” from the body copy. They are still comprehensible, conveying the conviction message despite these omissions.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

During the campaign period: From Aug 29th to Sep 11th the campaign has recruited 71,884 more followers on the brand’s social network website. Total number of sharing reached 200,000 People.