Keep Walking: 25 Years of Johnnie Walker's Iconic Brand Platform

“You either learn to overcome your fear, or spend your life in the wings” says Harvey Keitel solemnly as he features in Johnnie Walker’s debut spot for its 'Keep Walking' brand platform.

Released in 1999, the Pulp Fiction actor offers an insight into the challenge of acting and showing vulnerability while being stalked by lions in an old Roman colosseum. He pushes over a black monolith to represent his conquering such fears. And so, advertising history was made with the whisky brand’s first global campaign to feature its now iconic strapline.

Also featured in concurrent ads to launch the series were a fireman in Moscow and a New York tightrope walker. Over the coming 25 years, they would be succeeded by further high-budget dramatic productions that would draw plaudits and admiration. Despite that, it still took until 2024 for Johnnie Walker to win its first Grand Prix at Cannes Lions.

Global brand director for Johnnie Walker Jennifer English points out that 'The Walk' was the beginning of a golden period of advertising for Diageo, creative storytelling and TV advertising, being released the same year as ‘Surfer’ for Guinness.

“One thing that was innovative about 'The Walk' was a lot of advertising shows the world as being perfect and shiny, whereas that ad went into the challenges in Harvey Keitel’s otherwise very successful career as a leading actor. That was unusual for people and it still is relatively unusual in advertising to reveal challenges and imperfections rather than just a glossy fabulousness,” she explains.

Over the next quarter-of-a-century, BBH and subsequent agencies would create a consistent level of creative excellence for which Johnnie Walker would become known for across its communications. That would include campaigns such as 'Fish', 'The Giant', 'Human' and 'The Teacher'.

Riffing on The Striding Man, Johnnie Walker’s long-held brand mascot, 'Keep Walking' was intended to be more than a creative platform - it is a defiant message to people about overcoming the challenges life throws up. It offers up hope and ambition while telling audiences to go out and to lead expansive lives.

Another landmark year was in 2014 when Johnnie Walker released a series of short films for Blue Label titled 'The Gentleman's Wager' and 'The Race' with Jude Law featuring in the first film and the direct sequel, released the following year. The third in the series starred Formula One World Champion Mikka Hakkinen.

Striding to success

In 1999, Johnnie Walker wanted to evolve its positioning to move away from being ‘Dad’s drink’. In the three years before 'The Walk', sales were down 14 per cent overall. BBH stepped forward, suggesting that it embrace ‘progress, not heritage’.

To showcase that ambition, it flipped The Striding Man logo to appear to be walking forward alongside the ‘Keep Walking’ statement, creating a global icon in the process.

"In the years running up to the launch of 'Keep Walking', Johnnie Walker was showing up very differently across the world, and it had lost its connection to its DNA," explains Diageo's archive manager, Christine McCafferty.

"We took the time to deep dive into the Diageo archive and revisit the brand narrative from the last 100 years to reconnect with what made it distinctive. From the slanted label and square bottle to the Striding Man figure, and the way the Walkers built their business - the stories of innovation and progress soon led the team to Keep Walking."

While several high-quality campaigns would follow, arguably that creative excellence peaked with the Robert Carlyle ad 'The Man Who Walked Around The World' in 2009.

It is a six-and-a-half minute origin story for the brand’s founder told by the Glaswegian actor in one shot as he walks along a country road. A triumph of a campaign. it was applauded by the industry upon release.

BBH's Nick Gill, its former executive creative director who now runs its educational course, The Barn, was at the agency when it launched 'Keep Walking'. He was also its creative lead for a year at one point.

Gill describes Johnnie Walker as "a gift" and cites James Sinclair and Ed Morris with the concept of 'Keep Walking'.

"Progress was something the whole world could buy into. It was a global idea," Gill believes, placing it alongside 'The Axe Effect' and 'Tesco Food Love Stories' as one of the great BBH campaigns.

"It's been a massive campaign and something to be enormously proud of. The most famous thing we did was that we turned the man around from walking in the wrong direction. So we put him in the right direction which was a huge investment on behalf of the brand, but it shows just how committed they were to the idea," he adds.

Despite the creative appreciation the brand has built over the 25 years across the advertising sector, it wasn't until it won in the Music category at Cannes Lion this year that it took its first Grand Prix. And that historical moment for the marketing team came through 'Errata at 88'.

The campaign honoured one of Brazil's greatest singers, Alaíde Costa, now 88, and introduced her to newer generations, restoring her legacy as a Bossa Nova pioneer.

An evolving approach

In recent years, to reflect the shift in viewing habits, the 'Keep Walking' campaign has moved beyond a focus on high-quality TV and cinema films.

In 2021, as Covid restrictions were softening, Johnnie Walker used its advertising to paint a positive future with 'Keep Walking' the ideal statement after a bleak 18 months globally.

It did so in the best way it knew how - with a major global campaign celebrating the ability for people to get back out and socialise - to Keep Walking.

This campaign, from its current creative agency Anomaly, adopted a celebratory approach to get people back out in the world again. It featured a mashup of samples from songs including Run DMC and Aerosmith's Walk This Way, Loretta Lynn's version of the iconic These Boots Are Made for Walking and Lou Reed's 1970s' classic Walk on the Wild Side.

Alongside the music, the brand unveiled city takeovers, projecting inspiring quotes from cultural trailblazers, over city skylines and cultural hotspots around the world. It included quotes from cultural icons such as Grace Jones, Mark Twain and Ayrton Senna, visible across New York City, Mexico City, Cape Town, Tokyo and Bangkok amongst others.

This came just as the delayed Johnnie Walker Experience, a visitor attraction based in the heart of Edinburgh offering an immersive experience to socialise and enjoy the brand's whisky in a personalised way, opened its doors.

And while it has adopted various other communications initiatives to take the brand to the world, English promises that Johnnie Walker will still produce big global campaigns. However, she intends for Johnnie Walker's marketing "to be bigger, bolder, more transformative globally."

Activating in local markets has become core to its success, with the brand aiming to connect with people culturally, meaning that bespoke activations in different regions are vital.

"Television is still a very important part of the media mix, and in some markets even more so than others," English adds. "So the change is happening more slowly and more rapidly, depending on the markets you look at. So there's still a role for it, and our current commercials perform really well within that space, but obviously a huge proportion of media spend has also shifted to social media culture and PR and all those kind of spaces where beginning middle and end is a bit more difficult to land. So therefore the whole brand needs to kind of ooze progress and an optimistic take on tomorrow being better than today. And so it's different and that changes the brief, the creative challenge, and how we respond to it."

Andrew Tindall, senior vice president of partnerships at System1, describes ‘Keep Walking’ as a “driving force” over its 25-year history.  

"What has fuelled the enduring success of this campaign? It's the brand’s unwavering commitment to consistency. By consistently tapping into brand assets and this insight-rich positioning, Johnnie Walker has nearly doubled its brand recognition in the UK, according to System1's premium database. A similar trend is seen in the US, with increased fluency since the campaign's launch,” Tindall continues.

“One of Johnnie Walker’s most effective executions of the 'Keep Walking' campaign draws on nostalgia by celebrating the brand’s rich history. The campaign combines familiar brand cues with a relevant, melodic soundtrack, seamlessly bridging the past with the present and demonstrating the brand’s evolution over time."

Looking back over the 25 years at 'Keep Walking', it is also clear to see how advertising has evolved – moving away from TV as the core focus towards more local activations and embracing an increasing number of digital and physical channels too.

Johnnie Walker is a brand with a long history, before 'Keep Walking' was even conceived. However, this is a creative platform that still has a long way to go on its ongoing journey.