Oh Johnnie Walker. Thanks so much for your valiant attempt to honor women. While we appreciate the effort, we wish you would have learned a bit from the “Bic for Her” pink pen fiasco.
Check out the end of the post where I give the campaign a little makeover.
If you missed it, scotch brand, Johnnie Walker recently announced in a statement that “As a brand that has stood for progress for nearly 200 years, Johnnie Walker is proud to take this next step forward by introducing Jane Walker as another symbol of the brand’s commitment to progress.”
Well that was a great start, but they fell short when Vice President Stephanie Jacoby explained to Bloomberg that “Scotch as a category is seen as particularly intimidating by women. It’s a really exciting opportunity to invite women into the brand,”
GAHHHH!!!! First off, insinuating that a drink is intimidating to all women is presumptuous and insults women who love their product and clearly aren’t intimated.
Then there’s this poorly produced meme that ads no value over a simple graphic of the Jane Walker logo or something more creative.
https://twitter.com/JohnnieWalkerUS/status/968246615378153476
As always, the internet was buzzing with feedback on Jane Walker:
@HeatherMcguigan poked fun at the brand with sarcasm and wit.
https://twitter.com/HeatherMcguigan/status/968289463414808577
@JulieChaston called for a boycott
https://twitter.com/JulieChaston/status/968688135415705601
@edabny54 is only interest if it’s in a pink bottle – I can relate Elanore, I love pink too.
Is it pink? I’ll only drink it if it’s pink.
— Eleanor (@edabny54) February 28, 2018
The campaign is even turning off current scotch lovers.
https://twitter.com/Ladyisatraveler/status/968854325895286785
While it was hard to find, there was on positive reaction from @MasterofMalt
https://twitter.com/MasterOfMalt/status/968462229631918081
While I love and appreciate woman being honored, I think Johnnie Walker could have done better.
Here are few Jane Walker campaign improvements.
FLIP THE SCRIPT
One huge step they could have taken to create a more empowering narrative is to embrace their current customers and use them as a spring board to attract more women.
Linda DiJohn, Principal of DiJohn communications suggested a brilliant idea – “It might have been a different story if they said “Women have been sipping our scotch forever, it’s about time they got equal billing on the label”. That would have been something.”
Exactly! What an empowering message! One of woman getting equal billing.
REWORK THE MEME
Instead of their odd meme that seemed to have no purpose, I would recommend creating a visual of Johnnie Walker morphing into Jane Walker. BAM! That would have been a cool sharable meme.
On a positive note Johnnie Walker said it will donate $1 for every bottle of the Jane Walker Edition it makes to organizations that champion women’s causes, up to a limit of $250,000.