Straight Up
How Johnnie Walker Conquered the World
Foreign Policy
At a gathering of Beijing techies, on a cruise up the Nile, at a four-day wedding in Jaipur, or among members of Iraq’s Baath Party. These are all places where Johnnie Walker whisky has been poured — and, according to Afshin Molavi, the Scotch whisky’s global reach is only expanding. This delightful tour through the history and marketing of the ”amber restorative” is a blueprint for how to use our aspirational desires to sell us lots and lots of stuff — all over the world. The story begins in the late 1800s, when Alexander Walker became the company’s first brand ambassador, meandering around London “on a specially-built open carriage known as a phaeton, a mode of transport favored by royals and the superrich.” Today, five of Johnnie Walker’s seven top global markets are emerging markets, and ads from Mexico to Africa exhort the emerging global middle class to “keep walking” or “step up.”