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Marketing Diageo Johnnie Walker

Diageo's VP of entertainment marketing on Hollywood tie-ups, ad blockers and embracing the subscription economy

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By Jennifer Faull, Deputy Editor

November 7, 2015 | 7 min read

Earlier this year Diageo stuck up one of the biggest marketing partnerhsips in Hollywood as it tied its Johnnie Walker whisky brand to The Entourage Movie. A massive campaign was created beyond the film, centring on a brand film starring loved Entourage character Johnny 'Drama' Chase, which was written and produced for the drinks maker by the film's director Doug Ellin and directed by Entourage co-star Kevin Connolly.

It is now held up as one of the most creative executions of a blockbuster product-placement deal. The Drum caught up with the man who led it, Diageo's VP of entertainment marketing Dan Sanborn, to find out his views on everything from how the lanscape of movie-collaborations is changing to what the rise of the subscription model means for advertisers and ad blockers.

How has movie/TV marketing become more than just product placement? Why do it?

The most important thing for anyone contemplating integration into content is to understand the brand’s role and purpose in culture, and its reason for being involved. With a brand like Johnnie Walker, it really becomes about those places and spaces that bring to life the virtues and values of this nearly 200-year-old Scotch and its symbolism of the consumer’s journey through personal progress. Take our Johnnie Walker collaboration with the Entourage film. Not only is it relevant to our core consumer target, but the story of the Entourage cast is all about the pursuit of their dreams and the celebrations that come with it. For Johnnie Walker’s purpose of inspiring personal progress, and its role in culture during celebration moments, the Entourage film just made sense.

How do you decide what or who to align Diageo's brands with?

For us, we are lucky because our brands already play an active role in some of life’s greatest celebrations -- whether it be a promotion at work, a wedding, or your favorite sports team winning. From Johnnie Walker to Smirnoff vodka, our brands play an active role in these connection moments. To bring this purpose of celebration to life, we consistently seek out partners with shared values that allow us to engage consumers in an authentic way. Whether it’s the work Smirnoff is doing in the EDM space as a great connection moment in celebration that’s relevant to our millenial target, or what we have witnessed with Johnnie Walker and a film like Entourage, or even Jude Law’s work with Gentleman’s Wager for Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It’s about partnerships that help us bring the values of our brands to life in an authentic way.

Does TV/Movie marketing have a tangible impact on some of the harder business metrics?

If done well and not forced, contextual integrations in TV and films can drive significant value against key brand health metrics, consideration, and certainly appeal and intent to purchase. In our research from the Johnnie Walker/Entourage partnership, we saw more than 71 per cent of our target consumer say the branded content made Johnnie Walker more appealing and also made them more likely to purchase.

What were the success metrics of the Entourage movie tie in?

First and foremost we wanted to connect with consumers during a key moment in culture. Additionally, we wanted to drive positive movement of brand health and brand perception, engage with the 21-30 year old consumer and help provide an opportunity for commercial execution during a period typically not core to Scotch in the June timeframe.

We are in a golden age of TV drama - is this a space Diageo's wants to do more in?

With some of the world’s leading spirits brands boasting hundreds of years of history, Diageo is fortunate to have some of the world’s greatest creative minds from directors, to writers to talent interested in working together with us. Accordingly, this golden age of content and the number of places that adult consumers can engage it has created an opportunity for remarkable innovation with the way we tell stories.

Are you interested in working with the likes of Amazon/Netflix own content studios?

We are fortunate to work with such a diverse mix of studios, media partners and creators. What we mostly seek is working with people who have a point of view, an authentic voice and relationship with their audience, and are going to push us to the boundaries of our own creativity.

What are you views on ad blockers and the affect they will have on branded content?

The more important question is: why do consumers want ad blockers? It suggests that some of the content marketers want them to see may not be as good as it needs to be. The same is true for TIVO and DVR, and it is forcing brands to be clear on what their purpose in culture is, and demanding that we do interesting and creative things.

Could it see more investment by brands into entertainment marketing?

In general, the change in the marketplace from consumer dynamics to fragmentation in connection moments is demanding that brands be focused on great experiences. Some of which may be accounted for in the notion of entertainment marketing, but more importantly goes back to the fundamental of understanding your brand the actual value that it offers in consumers’ lives.

If we are at the beginning of a subscription economy where people are accessing content without adverts - what opportunities and/or challenges does this dynamic create for the way you structure partnerships?

The opportunity that a subscription economy is creating is for marketers to be far more creative than they ever had to be before. Equally, it will require marketers to be more humble than they’ve ever been before in understanding that individually they don’t have every answer. This will then require them to relinquish typical control to create new and innovative partnership models that provide more meaningful ways to engage with consumers.

How do you think Hollywood studios a could collaborate with brands like Diageo to create more movie tie ins?

It’s not a question of movie studios and film tie-ins, but rather more a question of how to partner with diverse networks of creators to collaborate on content and experiences that consumers actually don’t want to block. Ultimately, if you place your product in a movie that either is neither not good nor relevant to your brand or consumer target, then you won’t gain much value regardless of whether it’s a movie tie-in or not. The key thing remains to create great experiences regardless of the medium in which you’re creating them.

An ISBA study suggested marketers must try and strike deals with media owners and not media agencies, How are you working with media owners rather than media agencies at the moment and how is that dynamic changing?

We are fortunate to work with some of the most innovate and progressive agencies in the industry. We will always have partners to help us deliver the outcomes we’re after. However, that does not take the responsibility away from each of us at Diageo of being the caretakers of these legendary trademarks. That’s a responsibility that demands we are actively involved in every single partnership that we strike. With brands like Johnnie Walker, nearly 200-years-old, or Guinness, more than 250-years-old, it is paramount that we be accountable for the brand’s destiny during the short period of time each of us works with these trademarks. That is not a responsibility that can be purely delegated and it’s indeed a great responsibility for a marketer.

Marketing Diageo Johnnie Walker

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