WALKING IN HER CLEATS

The world’s #1 Scotch whisky, Johnnie Walker reaches beyond the category’s traditional consumer. Seeking to engage an unexpected community, there was an opportunity for the brand to walk with women sports fans.

WOMEN’S WORLD CUP

2023 put the global spotlight on women athletes with the FIFA Women’s World Cup. With the U.S. national team breaking viewership records and 17.3MM Americans tuning in, our goal was to drive love for the brand and women athletes.

BRIEF

To reinforce Johnnie Walker’s equity in sports mission as part of its First Strides initiative, we would activate against one of the largest cultural moments. Our goal was to create a more inclusive culture by driving awareness around the visibility gap for women in sports, showing the positive impact with more visibility and redirecting the excitement around the tournament to inspire new and existing fans to watch women’s sports.

The Women's World Cup is the largest women's sporting event globally with over 1.5 million spectators and reached an estimated 2 billion people in 2023. We wanted to inspire fans to continue to watch women's sports even after the World Cup to support their local teams.

To start the conversation and supercharge a movement for equity in sports, we partnered with actress Hannah Waddingham, from everyone's favorite football show, Ted Lasso. Together, we issued our nation-wide rallying cry: ‘Watch Women Sports’. A powerful video created with our non-profit partner Women’s Sports Foundation, shared curated insights that underscored the positive impact made by tuning into a game.

To sustain fan engagement, we created the Match Day Memos—a series of short video reminders from Waddingham sent via text messages on match days, twelve hours before kick-off.

Our message was clear: Watch Women Sports. This season. Next season. Championship tournaments. Local matches.

Despite sports media promoting every game imaginable, only 10% of this attention is dedicated to women's sports. And most of that is during big moments, like the World Cup. The fact that women’s sports reach well beyond the stereotypical niches, and fans want to engage drives us. Sometimes they just need a relevant and timely nudge.

TARGET AUDIENCE

•Advocates for cultural progress, especially progress for women.

•Young, diverse people who enjoy spirit - both team spirit, and the kind matured in barrels.

•Global sports community, with a special emphasis on football fans.

KEY MESSAGE

Johnnie Walker keeps the sports world walking towards a more equitable future.

DISTRIBUTION

Our campaign launched with a :60 spot of Waddingham announcing our initiative. This was supported by press outreach, nonprofit and cultural partnerships, creative merchandising, and content distributed across an integrated ecosystem of MMS/SMS messages, dedicated campaign website, and paid and organic social media.

Fans connected with Waddingham’s video on social media, calling for audiences to Watch Women’s Sports and sign up for her Match Day Memos.

We announced our campaign during Johnnie Walker’s first-ever Women’s Empowerment Game, played between the brand’s longstanding NWSL partners Gotham Football Club and Angel City FC. It was streamed on Paramount+ and onsite fans enjoyed team-inspired Johnnie Walker cocktails. We commissioned Illustrator Monica Ahanonu to design limited edition Johnnie Walker jerseys which both teams wore to symbolize the one team approach to achieve gender equality. The designs were available for purchase, with a portion of proceeds donated to the Women's Sports Foundation.

Out-of-home and digital campaigns drove fans to watch or attend women's soccer matches in their local communities. Through a watch party series with SB Nation, local guides with Eater, and pre-game celebrations at ACFC and Gotham FC stadiums, we showed fans how to Watch Women's Sports.

MEDIA RESULTS

•750MM+ earned impressions across publications including USA Today, Forbes, People, Variety, Ad Age, and Adweek.

•90.7MM impressions across talent-driven social media, with paid media generating 72MM. Waddingham’s post alone garnered a reach rate of 1,230% which was 3,860% higher than our initial goal.

CAMPAIGN RESULTS

•On July 14, we released our video announcing the rallying cry to ‘Watch Women’s Sports’ and the opportunity to sign up for the Match Day Memo series with Hannah Waddingham. In just over a week, our campaign landing page on Just Women’s Sports, where fans signed up for the Match Day Memos, generated 2MM+ unique page visitors.

•$100,000+ was donated to the Women’s Sports Foundation from the limited-edition merchandise.

•The brand’s Women’s Empowerment Game became Gotham FC’s most-viewed match, drawing 11,010 viewers on Paramount+.

•30K+ fans physically responded to the rallying cry through Johnnie Walker hosted watch parties and game day fan festivals.

Ultimately, we increased visibility for women athletes across, making progress towards closing inequities in sports and fostering a culture that uplifts all women. Our recent impact includes:

•ACFC social following grew 57.8% YOY since Johnnie Walker’s partnership.

•Through Player 22 – which provides grants for off-field development opportunities for NWSL players within sports – Johnnie Walker helped raise $2M+ for the community with 127K+ Angelenos served.