Close-Up: Live issue - Johnnie Walker: the story behind 'Keep walking'

in sales in 2007. The brand's portfolio ranges from Blue Label, one of
the world's most expensive whiskies, to Red Label, the world's most
popular.

Back in 1999, however, Johnnie Walker was on red alert. In the preceding
three years, volume sales had fallen by 14 per cent, while market share
was also in steady decline. For a brand with such a proud past, the
future was looking bleak; Bartle Bogle Hegarty was called to pitch for
the business. The brief was twofold: to immediately reverse sales
fortunes; and to develop a future-proof global communications strategy
that would bring sustained growth in all the brand's markets and
much-needed focus internally.

Big but not meaningful

The problem was clear. In a category where brand preference is key, the
Johnnie Walker brand lacked meaning. Years of variant-led communications
had reduced the brand's image to typical category associations. In
short, it lacked a distinctive voice. This was exacerbated by fragmented
communications, with local markets producing numerous unrelated
campaigns worldwide. Johnnie Walker had become a disparate collection of
products - it needed to become a single, powerful brand again.
Additionally, the growth targets were so ambitious, we at BBH knew we
would have to forge a significantly stronger connection with consumers
than the brand had ever achieved before. Johnnie Walker had to be not
just a whisky brand, but a global icon.

We studied the leading icon brands of the time and found that they meant
more to their consumers than just purveyors of products or services.
They tapped into universally appealing human values. By doing so, they
built such a profound connection with consumers that they enjoyed
considerable success across a wide range of markets. If we were to
effect a step change in Johnnie Walker's fortunes, we needed to inspire
whisky drinkers in the same way.

From achievement to progress

Whisky advertising has always been about masculine success. Yet, the
category's portrayal of success at the time felt obvious, idealistic and
removed. We sought an interpretation of success that could truly
captivate men worldwide.

To understand the nature of masculinity at the dawn of the 21st century,
we commissioned some global research that revealed an emerging trend: to
men all around the world, success was no longer about material wealth or
ostentatious displays of status. It was now an internal quality, about
becoming a better man, having an unquenchable thirst for
self-improvement. A man was judged a success not by where he was, but
where he was going. The most powerful expression of masculine success in
the 21st century was progress.

This spirit of progress had always been at the heart of the Johnnie
Walker brand. It was pioneering zeal that drove the founder, John
Walker, to start blending whiskies in his Kilmarnock grocery shop in
1820. The same dynamism led his sons to grow the company into the
world's first global brand. The brand's logo, the Striding Man, was
drawn to capture that same restlessness. This was not just going to be a
lick of paint for the brand; with our message of progress we would
rekindle the flame at its heart.

The Striding Man had fallen out of the limelight but we wanted to make
him a standard for the revitalised brand to march behind. This meant a
change in prominence and direction: he would be at the heart of all
communications and we would turn him around so he strode forwards, into
the future. While the Striding Man originally expressed the brand's
thirst for progress, we now wanted it to exhort consumers to progress
too. From this, the rallying cry was born: "Keep walking."

Launching with focus, exploiting with flexibility

"Keep walking" has run in more than 120 countries over eight years,
including more than 50 TV executions, 150 print executions, radio ads,
websites, sponsorships, internal awards, consumer awards and even a
charitable fund.

To maximise the idea's traction in the early years, we had to establish
its message and iconography clearly. The campaign was managed with
strict focus and control; the same creative ran everywhere.

Once the campaign had gained traction, we flexed it to accommodate
specific local or business needs while, on a global level, moving beyond
the launch creative work towards more surprising and arresting
expressions of progress.

Return on investment

From the launch of "Keep walking", Johnnie Walker's sales quickly
returned to strong growth and today that rise continues unabated. Volume
sales grew from 10.2 million cases in 1999 to 15.1 million in 2007,
resulting in a massive 94 per cent revenue growth to reach $4.56
billion worldwide. The campaign has galvanised all Johnnie Walker
employees behind a single rallying cry and increased Diageo's profile
considerably.

A true cultural icon

But how did we know we had made Johnnie Walker into a true cultural
icon? Douglas Holt writes in How Brands Become Icons: "Joining the
pantheon of cultural icons, (iconic brands) become consensus expressions
of particular values held dear by members of society."

As a result of "Keep walking", the brand has indeed become an expression
of progress, used by many to signal their identification with those
values. After the 2005 assassination of their Prime Minister Rafic
Hariri, the people of Lebanon took to the streets. To proclaim their
resolve to the world, they carried homemade banners emblazoned with the
words "Keep walking" and carrying a local pun on the name Red Label.

At a March 2008 party conference in Greece, George Papandreou, the
opposition leader, proclaimed to party members "We need to continue our
pursuit until we achieve our goal", then exhorted, in English: "Keep
walking."

Over the course of the campaign, "Keep walking" executions have elicited
remarkable reactions. It's not uncommon in creative development research
for young men to hold profound conversations about what it means to be a
man. We even found instances of people in Brazil tattooing the Striding
Man on their bodies.

"We have to take advantage of everything we have, to enjoy everything
and to give our maximum so we have no regrets when we die. We have to
think we are on this earth to do something; (Keep walking) motivates me
to be a better human being," a focus group member in creative
development research in Venezuela in 2006 said.

The case of "Keep walking" is clear evidence that ambitious
communications ideas, that truly inspire and embolden their audiences,
can revitalise sales, unify organisations and enable brands to play a
far more meaningful role in consumers' lives than more conventional
competitors.

- Steve Mustarde is an account planner at Bartle Bogle Hegarty.