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Diageo explains its new global campaign

Diageo Global Travel and Middle East (GTME) held an event at TWFA Cannes to celebrate the new Johnnie Walker global campaign: 'Joy will take you further' and give an insight into how the campaign’s ethos will shape its wider plans for travel retail.

The campaign champions the power of joy in driving progress, and the event featured a panel discussion on the potential of joy on the shoppers’ experience, the joy of giving and how joy was harnessed to create a new short film for Johnnie Walker – The Gentleman’s Wager II. Guests at the event were shown an exclusive trailer of the new film, introduced by Oscar-nominated Italian actor and star of the film, Giancarlo Giannini.

Joining Giancarlo Giannini on the panel were: Dr. Matt Killingsworth, leading psychologist and happiness expert; Doug Bagley, managing director for Diageo GTME and Peter Fairbrother, global marketing director for Diageo GTME.

Dr. Killingsworth explained the background to the campaign and the science of happiness. He explained how the study of joy and progress shows us that happiness makes success more likely. At the event a short film of an experiment developed in partnership with Dr. Killingsworth, who studies human happiness, was shown. The experiment – called Gratitude - showed how those who buy gifts for others gain more from the experience than those buying gifts for themselves.

The results were impressive, with 69% of those who shopped for others experienced increased levels of well-being. Commenting on this, Dr. Killingsworth said: “What this experiment shows us – albeit with a limited sample size - is that the joy of giving actually improves our well-being. A large body of scientific research demonstrates that greater well-being, in turn, makes people more successful at work and in their personal lives. In other words, joy will take you further.”

Doug Bagley commented: “We’re at a really interesting juncture for travel retail. Passenger numbers and average spend are increasing year on year, with new airports opening rapidly to meet the demand. Yet whilst the channel is growing, there are a number of challenges that make it increasingly competitive, and consumers are faced with a growing number of competing distractions at airports. The reality is that of 100 people who go into an airport, currently only 12 will buy alcohol - so that’s a huge opportunity for us and our customers.

“To leverage this opportunity, and particularly the important gifting market, we believe that we need to bring joy back to the journey for travellers. We’ll do this through celebrating the joy of giving, creating disruptive and engaging shopping experiences and an unrivalled ease of shop – all underpinned by our growth drivers premiumisation and differentiation, with innovation at the heart of all we do.”

The Gratitude experiment can be viewed at www.youtube.com/johnniewalker

Pictured above: Peter Fairbrother, Doug Bagley, Giancarlo Giannini and Dr Matt Killingsworth at the Diageo GTME event at TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes