JOHNNY Walker have announced their first UK television advert in 50 years as owners Diageo target the 25-35-year-old market.
The advert will be screened on November 4 and is part of the company’s drive to reinvent the whisky market in the UK.
In the past ten years, whisky consumers in the UK have fallen by over 5.3m, whilst the whisky export market continues to flourish, bringing in £2bn for the Scottish economy in the first quarter of this year.
To combat that fall, Diageo unveiled a £7.2 million domestic marketing campaign for Johnnie Walker Red Label (JWRL).
JWRL accounts for more than half of the 20 million cases of Johnnie Walker sold globally and will now be targeted as the entry point for “aspirational” young drinkers.
Erik Brentjens, marketing manager for the brand in the UK says “Here in the home of Johnnie Walker, we recognise there is still a long way to go, which is why now is the perfect time to not only invest in this iconic brand, but the whisky category too.
“Our contemporary new bottle design and engaging marketing campaign will inspire a new generation to discover whisky, ultimately creating opportunities for significant profits within both the on and off-trade markets.”
Diageo want to change the face of whisky in the UK, taking it away from pre-conceptions of it being a drink for dads.
Audiences will be sold the tagline “Where Flavour is King” in cinema, magazine and television adverts, the first time Johnnie Walker has appeared on UK TV screens since the 1960s.
The reinvention of JWRL will see a new bottle and glass, along with a new serve of JWRL and ginger ale over ice.

At Diageo’s winter briefing meeting last week, customer marketing director for whisky, Steven Hamilton said the company needed to get the image of whisky right and to serve it right.
He added, “It’s a completely different market elsewhere and people drink it differently worldwide. It’s a younger, vibrant drink and market, but not here.”
The company will work towards ensuring whisky becomes the “most vibrant category in spirits,” working towards rejuvenating and revitalising the whisky category to do so.
Steven added, “We want to recruit a whole new generation of whisky drinkers and premiumise the whisky category.”
To successfully target the 25-35-year-old market, Steven said the company needed a “great advert” and to communicate as best as possible with the market, calling this “aspirational brand communication”.
Asked why the brand had ditched the “Keep on Walking” strapline for the brand, Steven said Diageo didn’t feel this met with the target audience.
However, many believe it was ditched as the meaning of it changed when protestors in Kilmarnock used it as a protest slogan in the fight against closing the long-standing bottling plant there.
Johnny Walker is the world’s biggest spirit brand by value sales from Diageo, with the Johnny Walker brand the world’s number one brand. It is also the world’s best-selling spirit brand, worth $5.8 billion in sales.