How Johnnie Walker remodeled a century-old mascot right into a rallying cry that has endured for 25 years

As one of many world’s oldest model mascots, Johnnie Walker’s “Striding Man” – a red-suited dandy with a high hat and cane – has appeared in every part from journal advertisements to digital billboards and, after all, scotch bottle labels. themselves.

However the advertising director of Diageo North America Ed Pilkington will always remember the day Striding Man appeared in an sudden place: on a golf course within the Dominican Republic.

It was the early Nineties. Pilkington was head of gross sales and advertising for United Distillers (renamed Diageo in 2002.) “I bear in mind going to a restaurant [event where] you had the Striding Man actually strolling round a golf course all dressed up on this gear,” Pilkington recalled to ADWEEK.

The concept may have been charming with out a drawback. “He couldn’t speak,” Pilkington mentioned. “We had a person who walked mute. And I bear in mind pondering, “This actually is not nice. » Folks larger than me have understood this.

They did it. And so, in subsequent years, the extravagant mascot, which first appeared in {a magazine} commercial in 1908, impressed “Maintain Strolling,” an promoting marketing campaign now marking its twenty fifth anniversary.

With a number of notable exceptions, reminiscent of DeBeers’ “A Diamond is Endlessly” (1948) and “do it» (1988), model slogans hardly ever have a such a protracted shelf life. However the story of “Maintain Strolling” is extra than simply intelligent phrasing. It’s a research in how one model tailored an Edwardian visible identification right into a metaphor that resonates with twenty first century drinkers.

What are we going to do with this man?

Whether or not or not it was due to the mute man on the golf course, in 1999 the liquor big lastly determined to revisit its advertising technique. She commissioned the BBH company to care for it.

“The Striding Man has at all times represented the pioneering and entrepreneurial zeal of the founders,” Jason Cobbold, then BBH chief business officer. mentioned the UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Promoting in 2008, “We felt there was one thing on this icon that would assist the model transfer ahead.”

BBH’s first transfer was to show the mascot round to alter its orientation: it now walked from left to proper, which prompt extra progress. The designers additionally simplified him, stripping him of his opera glasses and frilly tie and turning him right into a silhouette.

The brand new Striding Man has additionally turn into an allegory: his legacy and assured gait will encourage the slogan “Maintain Strolling,” which in flip will enable the model to affiliate itself with progress and success.

No cartoon mascot may ever convey this intoxicating message alone, which is why BBH relied on high-performing performers in its subsequent tv spots. THE inaugural announcement broadcast in 1999, Harvey Keitel advised how he overcame stage fright. A 2001 spot featured a European soccer star Roberto Baggio he remembers how his missed penalty price Italy the World Cup in 1994, then how, after taking the identical shot in 1998, he put the ball within the web.

Associating a model of scotch with the trimmings of success proved to be a logical technique. In accordance with BBH figures, between 1999 and 2008, the marketing campaign generated some $2.2 billion in extra gross sales.

Does he keep or does he go?

By 2014, Diageo administration concluded that “Maintain Strolling” wanted a recent look. “BBH had been superb,” Pilkington mentioned, however “it was simply time to freshen issues up a bit.”

This flippant characterization belies the actual strain behind it. Mike Byrne, founding accomplice and international inventive director of successor company Anomaly, nonetheless remembers his first thought when his agency gained the Johnnie Walker account: “Make no mistake. »

“This model is so necessary to Diageo,” Bryne advised ADWEEK. “You are feeling this duty.”

One factor was clear: the concept of ​​linking “Maintain Strolling” to non-public success had turn into, to quote the Anomaly case research, too redolent of “greed” and “energy lunches” to resonate with shoppers. drinkers who have been now “extra multifaceted and multicultural than ever”. Earlier than.”

Progress on a bigger scale

Anomaly determined to maintain the metaphor of progress, however as an alternative reinterpreted “Maintain Strolling” as a society-wide name to motion.

The manifestation of this thought debuted at a vital occasion second: the day earlier than election night time 2016. Anomaly printed a one minute spot which featured actor Wilmer Valderrama studying an adaptation of the lyrics of Woodie Guthrie’s 1940 folks track “This Land is Your Land.” An array of multicultural vignettes, the bilingual spot was an unapologetic name for tolerance and inclusion amid the fierce nationwide debate over immigration coverage. The advert ended with Johnnie Walker’s up to date slogan: “Maintain Strolling, America.”

As Byrne explains, the marketing campaign remodeled Johnnie Walker from a model embodying private progress to “figuring out people who find themselves taking that step ahead and pushing the boundaries on the periphery of tradition.”

The tactic paid off. In fiscal 2017, Johnnie Walker gross sales elevated 6% globally and eight% in North America.

Beneath its new cultural rubric, “Maintain Strolling” discovered many new meanings, together with 2021’s “Maintain Strolling Anthem.” The spot featured a multiracial solid of younger women and men stomping to a mixture of tracks from a DJ, together with together with Run-DMC’s model of Aerosmith’s “Stroll This Manner.”

The slogan “Maintain Strolling” and the Striding Man mascot slipped into the final two seconds.

Taking massive steps in the direction of the long run

The issue going through manufacturers and businesses right now is how lengthy a “Maintain Strolling” stroll can take. It is a query the model and the company are at the moment asking themselves, even when the solutions aren’t solely clear.

“We have to get again to fundamentals,” Pilkington prompt. “We should [address] a brand new technology, and we have to convey again “Maintain Strolling.” »

“What’s [‘Keep Walking’] you imply now? It’s completely different from two years in the past,” Byrne mentioned. “We’ve positively turn into extra optimistic and optimistic – that’s what individuals need. Other than that, we’re within the age of the whiteboard and conversations. It is all occurring as we converse.