[LCM Articles] New York Times: A Brash Message to a Wounded Country

[Ayah Bdeir]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/business/media/04walker.html?_r=1
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/04/business/media/04walker.html?_r=1&oref=sl
ogin> &oref=slogin 

 

LONDON, Sept. 3 - Drivers heading north out of Beirut through the suburb of
Jal el Dib have been greeted in recent days by a billboard for Johnnie
Walker whiskey stretching across the side of a multistory building and
showing a drawing of a bridge with a chunk missing.

 
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s/04walker.1.ready.html',%20'04walker_1_ready',%20'width=357,height=600,scro
llbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes')> 

A Johnnie Walker billboard advises Beirutis to "keep walking," a slogan that
took on a more audacious tone after the Israeli shelling of Lebanon. The ad
has been circulating on the Internet, giving it a presence beyond the actual
billboards. Leo Burnett, creator of the ad, is closely tailoring its
campaigns to local markets. 

In an allusion to the recent Israeli air strikes, which destroyed dozens of
bridges across Lebanon
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/le
banon/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> , the Johnnie Walker character, cane in
hand, strides away from the gap and across the bridge on the poster, which
urges the Lebanese to "keep walking."

The ad is notable because multinational companies usually go out of their
way to insulate their marketing from any reference to sensitive
international disputes. 

A spokeswoman for Diageo
<http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.m
arketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.asp&symb=DEO> , Alicia
Tetlow, said the company's marketing guidelines prohibited its ads from
taking political positions. The campaign in Lebanon, she said, was intended
to "capture a popular mood about moving forward."

Diageo, the London-based company whose other brands include Smirnoff,
Guinness and Baileys, sells Johnnie Walker in dozens of markets, including
Lebanon and Israel
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/is
rael/index.html?inline=nyt-geo> .

Farid Chehab, chief creative officer for Central and Eastern Europe and the
Middle East at Leo Burnett, the agency that created the ad, said the
campaign was intended to improve morale, not to make a political statement. 

But he added that the ads represented "a new idiom in terms of how far you
can go."

While global marketers' sensitivities have sometimes resulted in bland,
one-size-fits-all campaigns, Diageo has adopted a "global local" advertising
model for brands like Johnnie Walker. That means a single global advertising
theme is applied differently in individual markets, in an effort to keep it
locally relevant.

With many marketers struggling to connect with elusive consumers, Mr. Chehab
said, brands cannot ignore "earthquakes" like the recent fighting.

"Advertising must be a reflection of what people feel and think at one
time," he said by telephone from Beirut.

Leo Burnett agencies work on Johnnie Walker in several countries, putting in
place the "keep walking" theme, which was developed several years ago by
another agency, BBH. One of those markets is Israel, though a spokeswoman
for Leo Burnett said there were no active campaigns there at the moment.

Mr. Chehab said H&C Leo Burnett, the agency's Beirut affiliate, developed
the campaign in Lebanon shortly after the bombing began this summer. The
ads, including the billboard and a series of print spots, started appearing
in newspapers by the end of July.

All of the ads use the "keep walking" slogan and the brand's striding
figure. One shows him alongside the fuel gauge of a car, which registers
empty, a reference to the blockade of Lebanon, which caused fuel shortages
and long lines at gasoline stations. Another shows a signpost indicating the
directions to destinations like Cyprus and Australia, hinting at the mass
flight from homes around Lebanon as the Israeli campaign unfolded. An arrow
labeled Lebanon points straight to the Johnnie Walker character.

The most striking execution in the campaign is the image of the bridge on
the billboard. Pictures of it have made their way onto Internet blogs,
giving the campaign a viral dimension that extends its audience far beyond
those who have seen the billboard.

Leo Burnett and Diageo said it was too early to determine whether the
campaign had affected sales of Johnnie Walker. But Mr. Chehab said the
attention that the campaign had generated on the Internet proved its
cost-effectiveness.

After all, multinational marketers can spend millions on advertising that is
often ignored. Or they can spend very little - Diageo would not say how much
the campaign in Lebanon had cost, but it was probably less than $50,000 - to
far greater effect, if the idea has legs.

 

 

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