User:GeeJo/Sandbox/The Man Who Walked Around The World

The Man Who Walked Around The World is a British online advertisement launched by Diageo in 2009 to promote its Johnnie Walker brand of scotch whisky

Background
As the ad itself attests, Johnnie Walker saw continued, if not consistent, growth throughout its early history. By 1999, however, the brand was ailing. Lacking a cohesive identity, regional marketing efforts saw Walker variously placed as a prestige marque (in Asia), a mixer for party drinks (in South America) and as a comfort drink (in Europe). With its market share diminishing steadily, Johnnie Walker began consolidating its marketing efforts, and entertained pitches from several advertising agencies. British agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty pitched a global multimedia campaign based around the slogan "Keep Walking". The aim of the campaign was to reposition the drink to appeal to "aspirational" consumers, making associations between the brand and successful actors, authors, politicians, and athletes.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/859102/BBH-scoops-top-IPA-Effectiveness-prizes/

http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/927734/APG-Creative-Strategy-Awards---Johnnie-Walker-keep-walking-BBH-Asia/

Pre-production
Rafn's previous work includes Experts for Bertolli and Don't Forget for Pedigree - "Biography: James Rafn", HLA website (2010). Retrieved 7 August 2010.

Conceived as an internal training film for Diageo - bbh

Every director we spoke to told us that it wasn’t possible to do what we wanted. That we would need concealed cuts and so on. Which would still have made a good film, but it’s the undertaking, the commitment, of doing it all in one take that makes it. Jamie Rafn was the only director who felt the same. Getting Robert Carlyle to do it then just took it up a gear. He has exactly the screen persona that we wanted. Tough, uncompromising, enigmatic. - bbh1 - http://bbh-labs.com/the-enduring-power-of-a-story-well-told-the-man-who-walked-around-the-world

This was produced originally as a film for internal use, with zero formal media budget behind it - bbh1

The brief was this fantastic script by Justin Moore at BBH which reduced 200 years of Johnnie Walker history into five-and-a-half minutes of monologue. At the very first meeting Justin and I discussed how brilliant this would be as a real single take but I don't think anyone else really took us seriously. - cr - http://creativity-online.com/news/behind-johnnie-walkers-walk/138386

I had to do the usual assurances that we had plenty of Plan Bs. The problem was I just knew that anything less than the real thing would not be anywhere near as good, so my Plan Bs were somewhat under-developed to say the least. - cr

Inspirations: Russian Ark is a whole feature shot as one take and is truly spectacular. I also re-watched A Touch of Evil, Goodfellas, Atonement, Code Unknown, Rope, Boogie Nights - cr

Narrowing down where we'd shoot was one of the trickiest things. We ended up doing that on one of our last trips up there before we were due to shoot. Steve and I went up with (director of photography) George Richmond. We'd seen some photos of the area and they looked great. George worked out which particular portion of the path was the best from a lighting perspective. - cr

Filming
Filmed in 2008 - bbh - http://www.bartleboglehegarty.com/#/europe/our-work/johnnie-walker-brand-heritage-02

It was shot near Loch Doyne in Scotland. The landscape is a huge part of it. It's like another character. Its hauntingly beautiful up there and we were blessed with these lovely clouds that gave us this really lovely brooding look. - shots

steadicam shot, not dolly rig! - shots

George Richmond. He was sat on the back of a rickshaw being pulled up and down this rocky hill by two grips. At one point they hit such a large bump the whole thing came tumbling over and we were paranoid we'd damaged the camera. - shots

the longest tracking shot in advertising history. - cannes

The film was deliberately constructed to make it impossible to hide any invisible cuts. - cannes

After the first day of shooting when we hadn't managed to get one usable take I did start to wonder whether my bluff was about to be called in a fairly spectacular way! Thankfully Robert pulled it out of the bag in the very first take of the second day and went on to give us brilliant take after brilliant take. - cr

As the light failed on the second day of shooting, with only 1½ useable takes in the can, the incredible Mr Carlyle nailed it on his 40th and last attempt. - cannes

The take that you have seen is the very last take we did at 8pm on the last day of the shoot. Take 40. - shots

I was concerned about, having never worked with Robert before, was how he was going to handle the shear technical feat that is shooting a six and a half minute single take. As soon as we started rehearsing however I quickly realized that Robert is an utter genius. - shots - http://www.shots.net/article_detail.asp?atype=1&id=9071

Hardworking. The light was gone, everyone was shattered and desperate to get to the pub. Robert sidles up to me and asks me if I wanted him to go again. -cr

We had all these meetings with post production about how we could cheat it and stitch shots together but the more we talked about it the clearer it became that the thing that would make this special was the fact that it was going to be a single shot. - shots

Me and Steve (Plesniak - producer) started blocking it out in Hyde Park as soon as the job was confirmed. Steve would read as I scuttled backwards holding a small HDV camera. The results weren't spectacular, but it taught us a lot about where we would be placing the props, and how long it would take to walk between the props. - shots

Steve and I then headed up to Scotland and repeated the process in the mountains in the pouring rain. We had a stack of index cards with things like "Bank of TV's" written on them and as Steve walked he'd drop the appropriate index card at the appropriate point in the story and that would be where we knew (approximately) that we'd have to place the relevant prop. - shots

By 5pm on day one we hadn't managed to do one complete take. We therefore had nothing. We soon worked out that the reason for this was the huge bank of TV's which we'd placed 2 meters in the wrong position. Robert was having to slow down his walking and speed up his talking in a way that was artificial and was throwing him. There was nothing we could do but rebuild the TV's which meant wrapping and starting again the next day having achieved nothing on the first day. The following morning there were a lot of anxious faces and murmurings of "fixing it in post". Then Robert turned up and did the very first take of the day in one. - shots

involves relatively little post - bbh1

Post Production: Glassworks London - bbh1

Release
Criticised for timing, ad came out as the closure of the bottling plant in Kilmarnock was announced. Carlyle asked to support, blah blah. - DM - http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2009/08/16/exclusive-trainspotting-star-plugs-johnnie-walker-as-bosses-move-to-axe-jobs-78057-21600482/

Response - a spokeswoman said: "This is a promotional video, not an advertisement, and will not be shown on television. "It is to be used as a training tool for our staff, to show them the history of the Johnnie Walker brand, and is for internal consumption." - DM

"the man who walked around the world" by Bartle Bogle Hegarty London really pinpoints what branding is all about: storytelling. The casting of the Scottish actor Robert Carlyle to tell the Johnnie Walker story while walking through the Scottish Highlands is sublime. Apparently, it was all, eventually, done in one shot, which just makes it even more impressive. It's too long to work as a traditional ad, but fantastic as a short promotional brand video. Problem: this is the worst possible time to launch this campaign. Like any brand, Johnnie Walker needs to be true to its heritage and there's a disconnect between its latest plans to close down its plant in Kilmarnock, the very town where Johnnie Walker gave his name to the world-famous whisky in 1820, and this brand-building exercise. - Jimmy Maymann, CEO of GoViral to Campaign magazine. - http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/936074/Work-Private-view/

Kate Nettleton of Campaign magazine: "As ways to communicate brand history go, it is a masterstroke of impeccable timing, captivating delivery by Carlyle and expertly crafted copy" - http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/930495/Diary-Pick-Week---Bartle-Bogle-Hegarty-Johnnie-Walker/

While filmed in 2008, was placed on website on August 11, 2009. - http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/926490/Robert-Carlyle-masters-six-minute-Johnnie-Walker-ad/

Seen as one of three major contenders for film grand prix at cannes, along with TMYMCSL and Gatorade's Replay - ada - http://adage.com/cannes2010/article?article_id=144688

Advertising age called it one of the few creative spots of 2009 - http://adage.com/cannes2010/article?article_id=144401

Seen as part of trend in upswing of male-targeted advertising - ada, http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/community/columns/other-columns/e3if0e09b86f3dc219a29f1836ea9086486

One of Campaign magazine's top 10 celebrity advertisements of 2009 - http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/969475/Campaign-Annual-2009---Top-10-celebrity-ads/

Won gold lion in film category - cannes - http://www.canneslions.com/work/film/entry.cfm?award=2&entryid=18853

Unanimous in awarding the gold - http://www.shots.net/article_detail.asp?atype=1&id=10312

Silver lion for copywriting - http://www.canneslions.com/work/craft/entry.cfm?entryid=23819&award=3

Best in Show at the One Show - http://www.shots.net/article_detail.asp?atype=1&id=10157

gold Andy award in longform category - http://www.boardsmag.com/articles/online/20100408/andywinners.html

featured in APA 2009 collection

2 golds at BTA

Best Camera Operator at BTA Craft, Best Performance by an Actor BTA Craft - http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/october/btaa-award-winners

Labour campaign seen as referencing it - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/15/eddie-izzard-labour-election-broadcast

Watch out for plans to develop & extend the platform. We think this story is just beginning. -bbh1

adweek named it the fifth "most epic advertisement of all time" - http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/the-25-most-epic-ads-that-arent-1984.html