All language subtitles for The.Man.Who.Walked.Around.The.World.2020.1080p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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[INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]

I spent five years in Iraq
reconciling bad actors,

getting bad people
to come to our side.

-[GUNSHOTS]
-[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]

You had to meet
with the bad people

in order to find out
how to get the worst people.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER]

PREGENT: Make sure
your weapon's clean,
your magazine's full,

your magazine's been tested,

make sure you have batteries
in your night-vision googles.

It is one thing to die
by the enemy's hand,

the other is to die stupid,
in some sort of accident

that you didn't prepare for
by doing your pre-combat checks.

[HELICOPTER HOVERING]

You get on a helicopter
in the morning,
fly somewhere,

meet with a tribal sheik
that used to be
part of al-Qaeda,

then you'll go back
to the international zone,

you'll put on a suit,
and you'll meet
with an Iraqi official.

The worst part of it is
they knew you were coming

because you had to
plan the meeting.

You'll be invited in the house,

the tea will start being
passed around,

the conversation
will start flowing.

And then you just
got to make sure
your bull [BLEEP] detector is on

so you know when
they're lying to you

or when they're
telling you the truth.

After a while,
there's an invitation
from the Iraqi,

"Okay, let's drink."

And at that point,
it's neat, two fingers,

everybody has a sip,
the conversation
is still tentative.

And then you get
to that second round,

and then that second round,

that's where
the truth comes out.

What was served
to drink in that meeting?

We had a budget of $250
to go and find whiskey.

It honors them.
You brought a gift.

And you brought something
that is forbidden,

is mamnue.

But in Baghdad,
it had to be
Johnnie Walker Blue.

[LOOK AT ME NOWBY KING FLEXX]

KEVIN KOSAR:
It signifies style,
it signifies success.

JOHN HEGARTY: You've got to
think about it as a movement.

KOSAR: There is
an entire demographic

who wants to have a good time.

Conquered much
of the Western world,
America, Europe.

NASIR KHAN: It's a demigod
kind of a status.

EKOW ESHUN: Turns up
in a Lady Gaga song,

turns up
in a Leonard Cohen song.

BARRIE WILSON:
Churchill, Nixon...

JASON SOLOMONS: Someone
somewhere had some
Superman balls, didn't they,

to sort of say,
"Yeah, yeah, we can do this."

Did whiskey have the same
mystique before it became
a star in the movies?

I don't think it did.

NEWSREADER: This story
is criminal.

NARRATOR: Whiskey
is the reward of a long,
unhurried process.

HEGARTY: To make it
a part of culture,
a cultural phenomenon.

CAPPADONNA:
To come from nothing

and make something
out of ourselves, man.

That's iconic in itself.

ZAKK WYLDE: We can't have
these scumbags

representing our product.

[CHUCKLING] Get out of here.

AFSHIN MOLAVI: Probably
had my first taste of it

in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
of all places.

Now Riyadh, of course,
is a place where
alcohol is banned.

Often at diplomatic gatherings, where alcohol was legal,

they would try to hide
the fact that they were
drinking whiskey.

We called it the golden
Coca-Cola

because it would develop
this golden look about it.

By the second or third
golden Coca-Cola,

the deputy military attache,
the first secretary
were swaying,

and we called it
the Coca-Cola sway.

Oh, if this bottle could talk.

This bottle has been witness
to so much history
over the past two centuries.

This bottle has been a witness
to the Industrial Revolution.

This bottle has been witness
to Winston Churchill's
wartime conversations.

This bottle was on the table as Iraqi Ba'ath Party officials

in the Saddam Hussein era were debating their next moves

on repressing their own people
or handling the US military.

So, in so many ways, the bottle
itself, if it could talk,

it would tell us
an extraordinary history
of the past two centuries.

Hiya, Bill, what do you know?

Hello, Rocky, what's new?

Nothing much.
A couple of whiskies.

BARRIE WILSON:
Every single country
pretty much around the world

has this iconic
Scottish product.

However, Scottish people

can be a little bit miserable
sometimes,

and it's very, very hard to tell

if they're happy
or unhappy half the time.

So, I think they're proud.
I'm proud.

Och! No, no, laddie.
That's no way to take a dram.

This is something that
time and history has given us,

the Scot has been marked out
as the custodian
of ultimate perfection.

NICHOLAS MORGAN: For someone
whose name is now known
all over the world,

John Walker is
one of the most remarkably

anonymous characters in history.

So John's father
was a tenant at a farm

just outside Kilmarnock
called Todriggs Farm.

He died young.

John was only 14,
and the goods of the farm,

the cows and the seeds
and all that, were sold,

and that was
John's inheritance.

And that money is invested
in 1820 in a grocer's shop
in Kilmarnock

that is a very prosperous
grocery business,

which specializes in blending.

[PEPPY MUSIC]

It was incumbent upon grocers to bring things in, blend them,

mix them to get
the distinctive product
to give to their customers.

Tea, principally,
was the product in the 1820s.

When John started
blending whiskey,

he would have been
applying those skills
that he learned from tea.

WILSON: You're taking over 40 different whiskies together,

and each of these whiskies

has a completely unique
and different character.

Bunches of apples and pears,
chocolate and honey...

So you're actually blending
these together to create
something quite magical.

Blending was illegal back then.

But even ten years ago,
I nearly got punched

for mixing a ginger ale
in a Johnnie Walker.

So imagine 200 years ago
what would have happened.

MAN: It's alive! It's loose!

We've done it, Charles.
We've done it.

You've got to ruffle
a few feathers, I think,

if you're a creative genius
like he was.

ALICE LASCELLES:
There's an amazing
alchemy that happens.

As you bring those
different components together,

they'll often create
a new thing.

There's this mystery at the heart of whiskey-making.

There's a whole lot about
distilling we don't understand.
Nobody does.

[ELECTRICITY CRACKLES]

JOHN WILLIAMS: In 200 years,
we've only had
six master blenders.

In that same period of time,
there's been 40 US Presidents.

I just love that dichotomy
of the scale and availability
of Johnnie Walker.

But yet, it's led
by this small group
of passionate people.

We're working
with this ever-changing palate,

so it's never the same.

Every time you look at it,
it's a snapshot in time.

And each time they're
being brought together
in a slightly different way,

but always creates
the same whiskey that you get
in the bottle each time.

You always learn from the past,
but then you think
about the future

because we're laying down stocks

that may not be consumed
for another, say, 12 years.

People in the past have been
snooty about blends,

but actually when you think
about what it takes

in terms of gathering
from different sources,

they were really smart.

The only whiskey
they had available before

would change
every time they tried it.

And they were able to ensure that the blend tasted the same.

WILSON: Unfortunately,
right now, blends
are seen inferior

to single malts by, you know,
those people who just see
an age statement

and think that, you know,
the older, the better.

Don't listen to these guys.

It's about the bartenders,
the chefs,
the guys who make it.

[CHUCKLES] Listen to them,
you know, don't listen
to Tony in the pub.

Tony knows [BLEEP] all.
[LAUGHING]

What can I get you, sir?

Oh, uh, whisky and gin.

Whiskey and gin.

CAPPADONNA: To create
these iconic blends

you have to keep poking at it
and poking at it.

The more you blend it in
and blend it up together,

I mean, you are guaranteed
to come with something good,
man.

To come from nothing
and make something
out of ourselves, man.

That's iconic in itself.

MORGAN: The most important
asset that you have
as a grocer is your name.

Because with your name
comes all the trust
and the respect.

So, it's natural that
when you make your whiskey,

you are going to call it
"John Walker's whiskey."

Brands existed
because we industrialized.

We moved from the countryside
into cities.

So, if you were buying something
from your neighbor,

if it was wrong,
you'd go over and,

"Oi! You've just sold me
something that is no good."

Whereas, once
you moved to a city,

you weren't necessarily
buying from around you.

So brands emerged as a way
of providing you
with the things you needed,

but at their core, their trust.

I can trust that company,
that person to deliver
what they're saying.

MORGAN:
Behind his grocery shop,
the Kilmarnock Water runs.

and in 1852, out of nowhere,
there's a massive flood.

Businesses where
John Walker's were
would have been washed away.

But five years later,
when John dies,

he leaves behind him
this very prosperous business.

These people are
from Kilmarnock.
It's a tough place.

West of Scotland's
a tough place.

I mean,
people are very resilient
to what life throws at you.

You have to be.

It's all about resilience.

CAPPADONNA:
You gotta be resilient, man.
You gotta be flexible.

When times are hard, man,

you just got to be ready
for the changes when they come.

You know, there's another name for the whiskey.
They call it spirits.

It's good spirits, man.
[CHUCKLES]

MOLAVI: As Johnnie Walker
began to rise,

in many ways, it mimicked
the rise of Europe,

Johnnie Walker rode the wave
of the Industrial Revolution.

Johnnie Walker also rode the wave of the British Empire.

[CHUCKLING] It was always
5:00 somewhere.

One of the biggest changes
during that period

is this sense of opportunity
that this expanding world
brings with it.

The interesting thing,
if you look at how these
markets seem to grow,

is that it follows
the discovery
of mineral wealth,

and in 19th century,
that is gold.

The British Empire
is the biggest trading unit
the world has ever seen

and taking expat Scots
all over the world,

and one of the things
that many expat Scots

take with them
is a liking of whiskey.

WILSON: It was
the first global brand,

even before Coca-Cola
was on the shores
of multiple countries,

and the way they've done that
is basically bartering and bargaining with the ships.

I can just imagine
these ships, you know,

sailing across the oceans,
and the Johnnie Walker
in those ships

must have been very tempting
to the whole crew. [CHUCKLES]

And it'd be interesting
to see the depletions
by the time

they got to somewhere
like Australia.

[SERENE MUSIC]

[INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT ON PA]

[SITHU THET SPEAKING BURMESE]

[INDISTINCT CHEERING]

SOPHIA BUSH: [IN ENGLISH]
When you think
about human history

and all the terrible things
we've done to each other,

when something
for hundreds of years

can carry
a positive connotation,

is something that people
can continue to be proud of,
that's rare.

For an idea
to survive for that long

means it's got something
kind of magic about it.

That's why certain books
are classics,

that's why certain movies
never got old.

That's why Johnnie Walker is,
we talk about the iconography,

but it's iconic.
The brand is actually iconic.

When you are
a part of someone's life,

as you are when you are
the whiskey people drink
at home,

or the whiskey they drink
after work with friends,

you're actually present
for really intimate moments,

and thus, you're a part
of that intimacy itself.

When you become part
of someone's experience,

part of someone's story,

you mean something
to those people.

[INAUDIBLE]

It was John Walker's son
Alexander that really
took the brand global.

He set up shop in London,
and he created this myth
around Johnnie Walker.

This myth around
this idea that this is
an aspirational drink.

You have arrived
if you can drink
Johnnie Walker.

So he was a marketing genius.

MORGAN: You have
a growing middle class

who've got increasingly
disposable income
to spend on small luxuries.

It's this idea that whiskey
is associated with status,

is a sign
that you have arrived.

CHRISTINE McCAFFERTY:
Alexander's one of my heroes.

John Walker
is our founding father.

He set up the business.
He started making his whiskies.

It's John's name on the bottle.

But without Alexander, his son,
and then the generation
that came after,

we wouldn't have the business.

And I think Alexander was key

in making what was
quite a small grocery shop
selling whiskies

a much more commercial venture.

MORGAN: The first thing
that he did

was have this label at a funny angle on the bottle.

And it very simply said,
"John Walker & Sons
Old Highland Whiskey."

Around the same time, he introduced a square bottle.

You could get more
square bottles into a case,

and therefore,
more cases onto a boat.

There were no rules.

No one had done
what people like John,
Alexander Walker,

in particular
Alexander Walker, did.

No one had done it in the past,
so they made the rules
as they went on.

The Johnnie Walker bottle
has by and large stayed the same

for most of its history.
And so what that means is,

Johnnie Walker itself
has this Zelig-like quality,

which is to say that it could
appear at different moments
in time and culture,

but it can also be the same
across all of those.

I think it speaks
trans-historically.

NARRATOR: People, people
from all walks of life
on any old street,

wherever they might be,
people like...

Good old Johnnie Walker.

It was something
more than luck

that brought us up
through the years

Though Lady Luck
had a lot to do with it.

[GENTLE MUSIC]

MOLAVI: In the
mid-to-late 19th century,

there was
a devastating insect pest

that hit most
of France's vineyards,

and something like three-fourths
of France's vineyards
lost their production.

Well, what did that mean?

That meant that
a lot of the wine

that made its way
to Victorian England,

and particularly
a lot of the brandy

that made its way
to Victorian England,

was no longer available.

Enter whiskey.
Enter Johnnie Walker.

It was a market opportunity
that was created

by the loss
of another competitor.

It's a very interesting one.
How does a brand go from

being a regarded brand
to being an iconic brand?

You have to have
a sense of purpose.

You have to have
a sense of value.

And in a way, you're that
sort of captain of a ship in a stormy sea. You stay calm,

you stay certain,
certain in your ways.

And over time,
you then become iconic.

You become somebody
that people want to follow,

because you have
a certainty about you.

[HEAVY METAL MUSIC]

I guess it's one of the few jobs
that it's not frowned upon

when you're drinking
on the job. [CHUCKLES]

If you stick three bottles
of booze in your body,
and then

a case of beer and spin them
around a couple of times
and just watch them go,

pretty much gonna be chances
of more chaos happening

than, you know,
having maybe a double espresso.

Well, the reason
why it was called
Black Label Society,

we like music
and we like getting hammered.

We had these grand plans.

I go, "Hopefully, we'll get
an endorsement
from Johnnie Walker."

[CHUCKLES] And then
we'll have it served
at all the gigs,

and then we'll get, you know...

We'll just be swimming
in the stuff,
you know what I mean?

Actually, we'll have
a pool in the backyard

which is shaped
like Johnnie Walker
with Johnnie Walker.

What they said was,
"We have
a reputable brand here.

"We can't have these scumbags
representing our product.

"Get out of here."

I could see that board meeting. That lasted about
maybe three seconds.

[LAUGHING]

MORGAN: When Alexander dies,
Alexander's two sons,
Jack and George,

his younger son Alexander
is also brought
into the business.

Flamboyant, they were not,
and they were also,
I think, very put out

when they began to realize
that their consumers, in fact,

had given their business a name,
which was Johnnie Walker,

which the family hated
because they felt it was
disrespectful to the founder.

But to exploit this name
that already existed
in popular culture

was the thing that
the business had to do

for the huge success
of the brand.

WILSON: It was
in a restaurant/cafe in 1909

where the family met

an illustrator
called Tom Browne.

Back in 1909,

just over a drink
and over a lunch

and within 10 minutes,

he sketched the striding man,

which is still
on every single bottle
of Johnnie Walker to this day.

That, for me, was that moment
that Johnnie Walker
really started walking.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

McCAFFERTY: A lot
of Scotch whiskey brands
around at that time,

a lot of them
using quite traditional cues

to communicate
about their brands,
"How can we be different?

"But how can we have something that people can really
build a relationship with?"

So he is like a living,
breathing character

of the brand.
He is Johnnie Walker.

What Johnnie Walker did
was they said,
"We want a symbol

"that stands for what we are."

The striding man became that,

that symbol of progress,
that symbol of moving forward.

The great thing for
Johnnie Walker is
you've gone beyond whiskey,

you're now Johnnie Walker, and that's a great achievement.

Oh, man, the spirit
of the striding man
is to keep moving.

You've got to keep moving,
you know.

If you stop, you drop.

That's what the walk
is all about.

SEAN MIYASHIRO: Striding is...
You're not walking.

You're striding,
you're walking confidently
with a purpose,

with a little pep in your step.

And I think that, you know,
the striding man
is fashionable,

he's got some zest,
he's got some swagger.

And I think that individuality and being a visionary,

and having a place to go
and all those things combined

make it
incredibly aspirational.

MOLAVI: The key moment
of alchemy
is when Johnnie Walker

fused its brand
with aspiration.

Because there is nothing
more human than aspiring
to a better life,

to walking forward,
to leaning forward.

You are not drinking
a glass of whiskey,

you are drinking
a glass of aspiration.

ED DAVIES: Johnnie Walker
has always been a huge brand
here in Brazil.

It's one of the most
name-checked brands

in a funk ostentacao
style of music,

which is a kind of
Brazilian hip-hop.

It appears
in all the music videos,

you'll see a bunch
of dancing girls

and they'll be
literally holding
the bottle in their hand,

waving it at the camera.

Johnnie Walker is a brand
that kind of cuts across

all the different strata
of Brazilian society, you know?

And Brazil is a really
stratified society.

Brazil since the '90s
had a huge economic leap

where a lot of people
suddenly had spending power

that they didn't have before.

And so the way for them
to express that,

their new kind of success
and their new affluence

is exactly through these brands that they can now afford,

that they never
used to be able to.

[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

[INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC]

[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

[ALL CHANTING IN PORTUGUESE]

DAVIES: [IN ENGLISH]
The protest started off
about a 20-cent rise

in the price of a bus fare
in Sao Paulo.

And the impact
that would have,

particularly
on the poor communities

who have to travel a long way to get to and from their jobs.

It was really violently
subdued by the police.

They fired tear gas,
rubber bullets.

[LOUD GUNSHOT]

More and more people
started coming out
in the streets.

The larger the protest got,
the more it started
to become just about

the social
and political problems
that Brazil has.

The phrase
gigante esta acordado,
the giant has awoken,

became one of
the kind of catchphrases
of that protest movement.

[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

[INDISTINCT SHOUTING
AND CHANTING]

[IN ENGLISH] The movement
started to get appropriated by
so many different groups.

You know, you had
communists on one side

and white supremacists
on the other side,

instead of being a movement
that unified
the whole of Brazil,

it became something
that actually divided brazil
even more.

[SPEAKING PORTUGUESE]

[CHUCKLES]

[LAUGHS]

MORGAN: [IN ENGLISH]
During the First World War,

the price of whiskey
had soared

through constant increases
in government duty.

The availability of whiskey
had declined

because distilling
was almost entirely stopped.

The fear
that the government had
was that munitions workers

in industrial areas
such as Clydeside

were going into pubs,
buying cheaper, young whiskies,

and as a result
of excessive consumption,

unable to work,
and therefore putting
the war effort in danger,

which leads
to a number of restrictions

that are placed
on the industry.

Already a very complex
backdrop

onto which
the influenza pandemic

following the First World
War was added.

When it came to celebrating
the company's centenary
in 1920,

in some respects, they were very muted about it.

But the one thing
I think they did do
was go out to the world

with a very optimistic message.

It's interesting that
during the first centennial

of Johnnie Walker in 1920,

their advertisements

were quite clear
on the philosophy,

which was "Still going strong."

These were people who
kept looking for ways
to move the product.

[BUGLE JINGLE PLAYS]

NEWSREADER: And this story
is criminal.

Ten thousand gallons
of whiskey,

wine, and beer
are chucked away,

bust up, destroyed
and wasted in New York.

LASCELLES: During Prohibition,
from 1920 to 1933,

it was illegal
for American distilleries
to make whiskey,

but people still wanted
to drink hard liquor.

So there was suddenly
this big gap in the market
for booze.

KOSAR: On the books,
we had laws saying,

you're not allowed to drink,
but everyone was drinking.

A lot of what was being sold
by illicit producers
was dangerous.

So Johnnie Walker
was moved in through
the country through Canada

and also through
the Gulf of Mexico,
came on up through the South.

When you have a small
Caribbean nation
that's largely poor,

there's no way that
that population is consuming
all that alcohol.

It's clearly coming in
and moving off.

You had a lot of
whiskey smugglers
who were bringing whiskey

into the United States,
and the square bottle
fit very neatly

inside a hollowed-out
loaf of bread.

LASCELLES: When Scotch
was being tasted
against bathtub gin,

it probably came out
of the comparison pretty well.

And so it gained
this real reputation

for quality and finesse
and desirability.

And so,
by the end of Prohibition,

there was this whole
new generation
of Scotch whiskey drinkers

and I believe
that by the end of the '30s,

America accounted for
something like 60%
of all Scotch whiskey exports.

[INQUISITIVE MUSIC]

NARRATOR: Whiskey
is the reward of a long,
unhurried process,

during which the utmost care
is taken to ensure

that the highest standard
of quality is maintained,

then and only then
is the blended whiskey ready

for bottling, inspection,
and packing into the cases

in which it will find its way
to every part of the world.

Whiskey distillers
must be the best
geopolitical risk practitioners

to think that 12 years from now,
15 years from now,

there's going to be a market.

You either have extraordinary
confidence in your product,

or you have
an extraordinary ability
to forecast geopolitical events.

I think it's the former
rather than the latter.

BEVERIDGE: I think
if you look at the history
of Johnnie Walker,

it is the story of adaption

-to what prevails
at the current time.
-Mmm.

We have to adapt to the present,
but we also have to think about

what the future
might look as well

and begin
to adapt for that.

But I think there's
a certain optimism
behind all that.

Yeah.

The belief that, yes,
things are going to change

as they have done in the past,

but we have the skills
and the ability
to deal with that.

And that, I think, is the sense
of where Johnnie Walker
is just now.

MAN: [ON LOUDSPEAKER]
Fire at will!

MORGAN: 1920s and 1930s
and 1940s period

is one of real difficulty
for the businesses.

Each time they go
into one of those
troughs of despond,

business emerges stronger,
remarkably stronger
on each occasion.

So the graph, if you will,
goes like this.

It's all about resilience.

[FULL STAR
BY DAN THE AUTOMATOR]

CAPPADONNA: As long as
you're consistent,

don't change
what you're doing.

Though sometimes
it's not necessarily
the product itself

that needs to change
with the times,

sometimes
it's just the wrapping.

[CHUCKLES] You know?

The presentation.

Instead of having
a blue bottle,

you might want to
change it to silver.

[CHUCKLES] You know?

Like my new look.

You know, they think
this is gray right here,

but this is just platinum.

I'm going platinum
right now, you know?

For me, consistency is key
behind a brand,

and you see so many brands
failing nowadays

by changing every year.

Changing, it's not working.

Give it time, give it time,
and sell it to the Americans.

[LAUGHS]

NARRATOR: To the United States
went the best that Britain
could produce.

And in its going,
many a bitter tear was shed.

KOSAR: So after the horrors
of World War II,

the Johnnie Walker brand
came into an America

that was able to start
spending money
on the good things in life.

So in its advertisements,
you would see
the guy of leisure,

who's always going places
and always having fun,
no matter where he's at.

Being a playboy,
being a player,

being this dandy-esque figure
became accepted.

While America was tearing itself
apart over race,

Johnnie Walker drops an ad
which doesn't take a stand

on separate schools
or anything like that.

They didn't mention
politics at all.

They simply showed
successful black men

dressed in ties and suits,

behaving like
good executives would.

This was a time when schools
were still segregated here,

when a black man who dared

to walk into
a white neighborhood

may not walk out.

It was very brave.

I think it just fits with the
entire enterprising character
of the company,

to realize that there's
an entire demographic

who is growing more affluent

and who wants to have
a good time.

And so, it only made sense

to make that leap
and market to them.

[SWING MUSIC]

MORGAN: In the '50s and '60s,
they bring in new people

who are very often
public school educated,

very often
good military background,

guards was always considered
to be pretty good.

And these guys
travelled the world
in the 1960s and 1970s,

to use a Walker word,
relentlessly.

They were never off airplanes.

It's like those films
you used to see in the 1960s,

which always had shots
of airplanes taking off
and airplanes landing

and airplanes taking off,
airplanes landing,

that was what
these Walker guys did.

They were, in a sense,
a sort of a symbol
of the striding man.

I could actually
go anywhere,

I could go into
any environment,

and I could succeed,
I could be accepted.

I would be able to navigate
my way through the culture
or whatever it was,

and be able to kind of
talk in a very urbane
and stylish way.

MORGAN: I think there was
certainly an expectation

that these people
had the ability

to withstand the most hostile
business entertainment

and still be at work
the next day.

[SWING MUSIC]

[INAUDIBLE]

HOST: We have
a number of questions,
curiously enough,

about your favorite things.

One wants to know
things you can't live without
when travelling.

And one person,
one well-informed
audience member, of course,

wants to know
what your favorite whiskey is.

[AUDIENCE CHUCKLES]

Well, I don't see
what the difference
between the two questions.

[HOST AND AUDIENCE LAUGHING]

[APPLAUSE]

The favorite blended,

the best blended Scotch
in the history of the world,

which was also
the favorite drink

of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party,

as it is still
of the Palestinian Authority

and the Libyan dictatorship

and large branches

of the Saudi Arabian
royal family.

Johnnie Walker Black,
breakfast of champions.

-Accept no substitutes.
-[LAUGHTER]

I'm a photojournalist,
storyteller, filmmaker.

I work mostly in war zones,
conflict areas,

covering a humanitarian
catastrophe.

Right now
I am in Baghdad Hotel,
here in the bar.

This is a special place
for us that cover
the situation in Iraq.

During many years,
the Baghdad Hotel
has been hosting

a lot of journalists
and also a lot of
military people

drinking some shots
of whiskey

and having meetings
and planning
for the next development,

the next job,
the next assignment.

I would like to be sometimes
a bottle of whiskey

to know what
they are talking about.

It's very important for us
who do this kind of job

to find a safe place.

No matter where we go,
and no matter
how dangerous it is

the place that we are going,

it's very important
we have a place to come back.

If you go to anywhere in Iraq, there is a lot of
fake whiskey going on.

The one that
you're going to trust
on the table

is Johnnie Walker
for everyone.

People don't know
the name of the car.

They don't know the name
even of some villages
here in Iraq.

But everyone knows
when you talk about whiskey

that the most important one here
is Johnnie Walker.

I cannot tell you right now
how many times I almost died,

bombs exploding nearby me
a hundred times,

and so every time
that I am back,
it is time to celebrate

because I have my life.

When you come back
to the real life,

and you sit
in the normal table,

and you get
some shots of whiskey,

and you drink this whiskey,
it's like,

you made it up, you survived.

BARTENDER 1: Whiskey
is a conversation.

That's the whole point
of whiskey.

Whiskey is for everybody.
It's made by a bunch
of farmers in Scotland.

It's a drink for the people.
For some strange reason,

when it came down south,
it was just like
it came really...

I don't know,
just like uppity class.

-I think we used the term
[BLEEP] a lot.
-[OTHERS LAUGH]

The stigma is just old white men
in smoking jackets,
drinking whiskey.

Everybody experiences
some stigma

and some very strange
and perhaps dated opinions,

and where do these
opinions come from?

That there's certain
flavors for women,

or that women are not
going to enjoy whiskey,
for example.

It's about education for me.

A lot of people now
are open-minded
to that changing.

But I've seen that
there's no correlation
at all to who you are

and what flavors
you're going to enjoy.

BARTENDER 1: Get rid of
that stigma behind whiskey

because there's so much stigma

and so much [BLEEP]
around whiskey that it is
just a good quality drink.

-Thank you very much.
-Pleasure.

-Slainte.
-[LAUGHING]

LASCELLES: There's quite a lot
of peacocking around whiskey

and sort of bashing each other over the head

with knowledge
and showing off,

and just very broadly speaking,
I think women tend to go in
for less of that.

It's still seen as a bit racy
for a woman to go into a bar

and order
a neat whiskey even now,

but that is
gradually changing.

KOSAR: A lot
of the advertisements

for liquor that included women

had women basically
as elbow candy.

They were, you know,
what the successful man gets.

Instead, Johnnie Walker
put an ad out there
just showing successful women

behaving as equals,

and one woman would say,
"He respects me for my mind,

"He doesn't mind that I earn more than he does.

"He's not married or anything,
and he drinks Johnnie Walker."

BUSH: I am a longtime
whiskey drinker, actually,
and it's funny,

I think it's become a bit more
popular with women

and, you know,
the craft cocktail movement
has certainly changed things.

But there was nothing
like ten years ago,

ordering an Old Fashioned
at a bar,

and every guy at the bar's
head turns and goes,

"Who are you ordering that for?"
And my answer always was, "Me."

[LAUGHS]

I think perhaps
it's theMad Men era
that did some of that.

You know,
a bunch of guys in suits.

We were always in the room.
We just weren't being
given access to the power,

and we weren't
being given the credit.

[DANCE MUSIC]

ESHUN: In the 1980s,
the brand makes
a conscious effort

to be actively, visibly
part of the culture.

And so, you start
to see it turn up

in movies and in advertising
much more visibly.

SOLOMONS: I think whiskey
is the drink of the movies.

I mean, did whiskey
have the same mystique

before it became a star
in the movies?

I don't think it did.

I think the smartest move

that Johnnie Walker
probably ever made

was to make the label
at that 24 angle degree

because even when
it's blurred in a film

or turned around in a film,

you can still see
the label creeping around.

You immediately know

that that's a bottle
of Johnnie Walker.

-Thank you.
-MAN: [ON PHONE] Yes, sir.

[PHONE BEEPS]

I always loved Superman III.

It was supposed to be
the silly one,

but that's why it works.

Richard Lester directs it,

and it's got Pamela Stephenson
and Richard Pryor in it.

And I always thought
it was hilarious,
Superman III.

And it's really good to put
humor into what is essentially
a very serious genre,

the superhero genre,
even still.

And when Christopher Reeve's
Superman, in Superman III,

goes to the dark side
because he's had
a dose of deadly kryptonite,

he sits in a diner
and has a bottle
of Johnnie Walker Red Label

very conspicuously
turned towards camera

and uses it for sadness,
uses it to get drunk,

uses it to contemplate evil.

[CHUCKLES] And the evil
that's involved is

trashing other brands,

flicking peanuts
with his supercharged
Superman fingers

and destroying other brands
right before your eyes.

Hey, hey! Hey, come on.

Someone somewhere had some
Superman balls, didn't they,

to sort of say,
"Yeah, yeah, we can do this.

"We can have Superman,"
who is in some way

a sort of Christ figure
for saving America,

"have him trashing
all the other brands."

They jumped
the shuttle off-world.

Killed the crew
and passengers.

Harrison Ford in Blade Runner,
he drinks whiskey.

RICK DECKARD:
Do you want a drink? No?

SOLOMONS: He's the man that needs to do one last job.

So he's going to need whiskey
to gird his loins.

To solve this mystery,

he needs Johnnie Walker
as his companion
to keep walking.

He's using it medicinally
to get over a beating,

he's using it
to soothe his mind,

he's using it
to plaster over those wounds,

but he's also using it
to concentrate.

DECKARD: Enhance 224 to 176.

[BEEPING]

[AFFIRMATIVE BEEPS]

[FILM CLICKING]

SOLOMONS: It's interesting,
isn't it?

He could do this
with a cup of tea,
but then we'd be comforted

and I think we need
more than comfort.

You like whiskey?

I got millions

of bottles of whiskey.
[SIGHS WEARILY]

In the remake or the update,
the 2049 Blade Runner

with Ryan Gosling in the lead,

this is a much more
brand-oriented world.

Some brands have survived
from the previous existence,

and they have
followed it through.

Some key markers
of Western civilization,
if you like,

and some things will survive.

Well, Johnnie Walker
has clearly survived.

Still the same color, still burning brightly as ever,

still promising that mystery.

I think it is key that
the character must maintain
his whiskey brand

though all
that he has gone through.

Through all the iterations,
through all the disappointments,

he is going to stick
to one brand.

One thing he knows for sure
is he is going to get his joy
from that bottle.

Everything else around us
watching the movie

within the movie has changed.

We're in the future.

Johnnie Walker remains the same.

Ultra-intelligent AI,
replicants, flying cars,

none of these things
have quite come true yet.

But the one thing
that remains true

and visible and recognizable

in both those films
is the bottle of Johnnie Walker.

And, in a way, this is actually
quite a safe prediction
for the future.

So perhaps
we won't have flying cars
anytime soon,

but it is quite likely
that a bottle of Johnnie Walker
will look the same

in 20, 50,
maybe 100 years' time

as it did 100 years ago.

People always say,
"Oh, it's terrible,

"product placement,
and it's not right.

"It shouldn't be done."

And I do point out
that actually

it was the Venetians
who invented product placement.

And there's a very famous
painting by Titian.

It's called The Annunciation.

And if you look
at that painting,
in the right-hand corner,

there's a clear decanter glass.

Maybe Mary
wanted a drink?

I don't know
what it was there for.

[CHUCKLES] No, no, no.
It wasn't for that reason.

It was there because
the Venetians were
very proud of their industry.

So their artists used to
insert elements
of what they could do,

so that they could say
to the Florentines,
or the Romans,

"Look, see you might be able
to paint a picture,

"but you can't do glass
the way we do it.

"It's there, you can
have a look at it."

It was the Venetians
who invented product placement.

-DECKARD: Enhance. Stop.
-[FILM CLICKING]

-[ALARM BEEPING]
-[ENERGETIC MUSIC]

MORGAN: In 1997,
someone called Alice Avis

was put in charge
of Johnnie Walker,

and she took the view that

a lot of the advertising
had become cliched

and quite stereotyped
around the world.

Alice realized
that masculinity
lay at the heart of

what the brand was about,

but didn't think that
people really understood
what masculinity meant

in a modern world.

So they did a massive
global study on masculinity.

[INAUDIBLE]

Now, you better start telling me
what happened.

I was having a few drinks,
and I got into an argument
with some cat

about the role
of modern man in society.

Then things
began to get all foggy.

HEGARTY: They came to us,
and at that time,

whiskey advertising was all about "Be successful,"

and they represented success
as a place,

a penthouse, or somebody
who was always in a tuxedo,

and it was maybe undone.
How daring.

Oh, I'll just undo the tie.
Ooh, that'll be very daring.

Or I'm on the back
of some boat in,
you know, Monaco

or wherever it might be.

But that was an increasingly
old-fashioned view of success.

Success isn't a place,
it's a journey.

And truly successful people
never arrive

because they keep
moving forward.

From that, you very,
very quickly
get to keep walking.

And that, in a sense,
liberated the category

from talking
like a conventional whiskey.

And so, we created advertising

that was unlike
a whiskey brand.

It was a moment when the brand
really came back into itself,

and it had confidence,
and it was able to kind of

go into the marketplace
and put a bottle on the table

and say,
"This is what we stand for."

And people bought it,
and it succeeded.

You can see it from,
you know, the sales figures.

Then we got to
the man who walked
around the world,

which is a lovely description
of the brand,

and where it had come from,
and where it was going to.

-[BAGPIPES PLAYING AND STOPPING]
-Hey, piper.

Shut it.

Here's a true story
about a young lad named John.

Just a local farm boy.
There was something
special about the lad.

-We were up at the...
-Druim M'Aodhaig.

Yes, that's right.
We were up at the castle
in Scotland.

-As you are.
-[CHUCKLING] As you are.

I just had this idea
that I'd love
to be able to tell

the Johnnie Walker story
without cutting.

And at the time,
I remember thinking,

I hope the story
doesn't take more than
about 60 to 90 seconds

-because I think it would be
hard to do it otherwise.
-[BOTH LAUGH]

Well, these were the days
when young boys
were sent into the fields,

the mills, the mines,
tough times.

But young John
was smart enough to be lucky.

His father's farm,
where he was born and raised,
was sold,

and the proceeds used
to open a grocers.

You'd have one actor
talk non-stop,
eyeballing the camera

for six and a half minutes
on point

with, I think, something like
18 hit points along the way.

No director,
no production company
wanted to take it on.

He had to walk
a certain number of paces
out of the mist,

towards the bagpiper,
to turn at that right moment

and say, "Shut it,"
to walk a few more steps
to start the thing

that had the cow turn its head,
that then...

And when you look back on it,
you think, "What on Earth
were we thinking?"

Does he get his hat
out of his pocket
at just the right moment?

Isn't there just the right spot
to pick up the whiskey

from the table where
he's talking about
Johnnie Walker Blue, or...

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Two hundred years later,
and Johnnie Walker's
still walking,

and he's not showing
any signs of stopping.

MAHONY: It was 42 takes
across the two days.

I remember hearing,
I think it must have been

just before lunch
on the final day.

"Yeah, we still
haven't got one."

[LAUGHING]

Yeah, it was the last take?
The last take is the film.

Because that was the only one
that actually really worked.

ESHUN: I find brands
like Johnnie Walker
really fascinating

because they, in a number of different ways,

have managed to hold on
to a place in the world,

despite how quickly
and how profoundly
the world continues to change.

The identity is so strong
that it seems
to transcend time,

it seems to transcend place,

and it seems to speak
of universality,

though it has this fascinating
symbolic quality to it,

as well as just a simple thing
of being something expensive

and something
that's perceived as luxury.

It ends up
as this totemic item
that can be used in bargains,

can be used in rituals,
can be used in music.

So Johnnie Walker,
for instance,

turns up
in a Lady Gaga song,

turns up
in a Leonard Cohen song.

This is one way of saying,
"We'll take the icons

"and the brands
of Western culture
and Western society,

"and we will make them over
in our own terms."

And that, I think,
is how you get to be
part of the culture.

It's that it's been able
to simplify its message,

so if you're in India
or if you're in Afghanistan
or if you're in Myanmar

or if you're in different
parts of Europe,

if you're
in mid-century America,

let's say, those perceived
values don't change.

MIYASHIRO: Brands
connecting with culture,

doesn't matter if it's sport
or music or whatever,

you know,
is a decades-old thing,

but you have to have everything.

It's the cross-pollination
of traditional advertising,

which is the amplification
of everything.

But what is the core idea
actually is the genesis
of everything, right?

It's not just
all about going to, "Hey.

"Who's the number one actor
or the pop star?"

The obvious choice
is really understanding

who is creating
and innovating.

Those brands do quite well.

Well, you know,
you've always
got to be careful.

There are many great brands
who've gone.

You know?
I've worked on some of them.

Polaroid, one of them,
didn't innovate, of course.

And great brands can die.

You get trapped
by your own success.

I mean, you can look
at great bands, great...

And you can look at
how they had to
keep moving forward.

You know,
you look at the Beatles,
and how they started singing,

"She loves you. Yeah. Yeah. "
And end up with Sgt. Pepper,

and they constantly
move forward,

whereas other bands didn't.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

KOSAR: Johnnie Walker whiskey
has conquered
much of the Western world.

The real action is in
the developing markets.

[INDISTINCT CHEERING]

LASCELLES: If you look
at emerging markets,

where Johnnie Walker
is taking off is always
a good barometer

of an emerging
economic market.

MOLAVI: Any study of whiskey,
any study of Johnnie Walker

has to focus on India.

India is the largest
whiskey-consuming nation.

In India, Johnnie Walker
has a localized nickname.

They call it "Uncle Johnnie."

[BOLLYWOOD MUSIC]

Johnnie Walker
regularly appears
in Bollywood films,

so much so that there is
a prominent Indian actor

in Bollywood
who changed his name
to Johnny Walker.

[INAUDIBLE]

NASIR KHAN: It's a demigod
kind of a status
that film stars have here.

There are so many temples
that are named after actors,

and the statues are made,
and they worship them.

He is one of the pillars
of the Indian cinema,
my father.

And I turn around
and tell people

that I have Johnny Walker
running in my veins.

Ooh.

[SPEAKING HINDI]

Huh?

KHAN: [IN ENGLISH]
As a teenager,

he used to go to the studios,

he used to look around
for work.

So my dad used to act
like a drunk very, very well.

[SPEAKING HINDI]

[IN ENGLISH] So he barged in
the office as an alcoholic

and started creating
a ruckus over there,

went to Guru Dutt,
who was the director,

started troubling him,
hassling him,

to the point
where they had him
thrown out of the office.

So Guru Dutt,
being the director,

was extremely impressed
by my father.

He said, "This is one scene
I can offer you."

[SLURRING IN HINDI]

KHAN: [IN ENGLISH] Guru Dutt
came up with the name.

He said, "You need
a screen name, just call
yourself Johnny Walker."

-[JOHNNY WALKER CLEARS THROAT]
-[CLEARS THROAT IN RESPONSE]

-[JOHNNY WALKER CLEARS THROAT]
-[COUGHING]

A lot of people
used to think that

the whiskey was named
after my dad Johnny Walker.

Irony, part of it
that my father,
he was a devout Muslim

and because
it's not allowed
to drink in our religion,

he never touched alcohol
in his life.

[VIOLIN MUSIC]

MARIE MACKLIN: Johnnie Walker
was always that beating heart
of the town.

There were 700 jobs
employed in the town,

and the money that was spent
wasn't just local,

it was in local shops,

but it was
in the surrounding
areas of Ayrshire.

We were at the forefront
of the first
Industrial Revolution.

REPORTER: Each bottle
proudly displays Kilmarnock
as its origin.

The 700 people who work here
are part of the town's heritage,

but soon, these gates
will be closed forever.

MACKLIN: Johnnie Walker
wanted to be more commercial

to retain the business
and make that business grow.

At the time of exit,

they would be the last
big industrial employer
in Kilmarnock.

So that was
like the final nail
in the coffin.

The Industrial Revolution
of the 1800s was now gone.

Do you stand back
and do nothing?
That's just not an option.

I remember going
buying the costumes,

buying the ribbons,
buying placards.

An hour before,
there was about 20 people.

And then, all of a sudden,
the place just descended
with people.

[INDISTINCT CHANTING]

We needed a new college.

The college
was from the 1960s.

Eight acres of the site
was donated for a pound,

and a new £50 million college
was built,

funded by the
Scottish government.

So the legacy
that Diageo is leaving

is just the start
of another journey

for that community that
we have been
at the forefront of driving.

That Johnnie Walker spirit
is still alive,

but it's just the different
shoes that keep on walking.

I think today...
I think a brand is much more

about a movement
than just about trust.

You gotta think about it
as a movement.

What are you
trying to change?

What are you trying
to bring to the world?

As an example, I think Apple
is a very good example
of that movement.

It was bringing computing
to the people.

That was its great thing.
And therefore,
a brand has to stand for more.

Are we about the future?
Are we making
this product in a way

which is sustainable?
Are we caring for the planet?

Are we... All those things
before you actually

get to,
"What does it taste like?"

The new consumer,
certainly the millennial
consumer

would like to see companies
giving back to communities.

I think they would also
like to see in some ways

an understanding
and an appreciation
for the heritage of a brand.

BUSH: I think the days
of just making something

and being a sort of
hazy figure in the distance,

that doesn't work
for people anymore.

We want to know
where our money's going

because every dollar
that we spend is a vote.

So we want to know
who's behind the brand?

What do they believe in?
What is their ethos?

How do they treat the people
at their company?

Do they pay them fair wages?

Do employees get maternity
and paternity leave?

These things are important
to consumers now.

I think the future is about
being thoughtfully inclusive.

I think the future is about

building bigger tables
and longer bars

for people to sit at
and toast together,

and dream up ideas

and innovations in ways
to advance the world for good.

They came to me
to talk about
leading for women.

And we opened
an exhibition.

Not every brand
is that willing to

"put their neck out there."

I only want to run in circles
with people who say,

"How much further
can we push this?
How much more can we

"yank on the end
of the moral arc
of the universe

"and continue to bend it
toward justice?"

If it's possible,
we have to contribute to that.

ESHUN: I think the old anxiety
was that in getting
into bed with a brand,

you'd have to change,
you'd have to become
a corporate shill

or something like that.
Now it's the opposite.

Now it feels like brands
spend a lot of time

trying to catch up with these
sort of powerfully totemic
individuals themselves

that can speak all around
the world at the same time.

Social media has disrupted
so many of these traditional
forms of communication,

so right now, you know,
you can go to Instagram

and you can have
a much more intimate
relationship with a star.

HEGARTY: I'm slightly
suspicious of those things.

Every other ad for a watch
has got a star in it.

The brand should be the hero.

Don't go and buy another hero.

The advertising world
is perhaps skeptical

of the role of brand ambassadors
and the environment we have

where culture and commerce
blend together
that much more easily.

Because what gets
left out of that game
is the idea

that the thing the brand needs
to do to sell itself
is a 30-second commercial.

That feels like a fantastically
anachronistic idea right now,

when in fact you can
cut out the middleman

and go straight
to the individual
at the heart of this.

[ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING]

WILLIAMS: Johnnie Walker
was founded on the principle

that we'd make whiskey
for everybody.

And it was true 200 years ago,

and it remains true today.

What we have to do,
what we must do

is keep
Johnnie Walker vibrant,

so that we're making whiskey
exciting for everybody,

so that we're creating
the next generation
of whiskey lovers.

[INAUDIBLE]

Johnnie Walker, 200 years old.

Will they be here
in 100 years' time?

I hope so. They've got
to be distinctive,
be daring, be different.

Believe in me.

MOLAVI: Johnnie Walker
has been nimble over
the past 200 years, clearly.

They're going to have to show
that same nimbleness
over the next 100 years

in order to remain
an iconic brand,
like they are today.

They've got their ear
to the ground all the time,

and they really know
where stuff is happening.

I think that's probably
something that
they have done really well

over the decades.

Staying optimistic
is the way that you can
pull people together,

and the Johnnie Walker icon
has just become a symbol
of that in many places.

The strength of the idea
is infinite.

Keep walking, you know,
takes you everywhere.

[FULL STAR
BY DAN THE AUTOMATOR]

HEGARTY: People
need inspiration,

people need to
believe in something.

Keep walking.

Wear a face mask. Mmm.

WILLIAMS: It's a brand
that has existed
for 200 years.

There have been so many
global crises that have
been thrown at the world,

the Spanish Flu,
two world wars,
Prohibition.

But Johnnie Walker has grown
from strength to strength.

I believe that together
the global community
will overcome the crisis

and that we'll all
emerge stronger.

The human desire
to come together, to connect,

to socialize,
to share stories,

to laugh, to cry,
that will always exist.

CAPPADONNA: Just keep moving,
keep walking that walk.

Everything
don't got to be perfect.
Know what I mean?

You just got to do
the best that you can do.

Gotta keep walking, man,
and it's good for your health.

[CHUCKLES]

[FULL STARCONTINUES]