Anomaly has made some significant changes to the Johnnie Walker “Keep Walking” work since winning the account away from BBH in December 2014. Its debut campaign was the liquor brand’s biggest ever, and it followed with a sequel to the “Gentleman’s Wager” ad starring Jude Law.
The latest Walker ad “This Land” debuted the day before the election, and it was political, if not explicitly partisan, in nature. The spot celebrated American progress and diversity in the abstract without commenting directly on the upcoming vote, but some saw it as an endorsement. U.K. blog More About Advertising summed it up with the headline “Johnnie Walker Backs Clinton in Anomaly’s Election Ad.”
Multiple sources told us this week that the planned sequel to that spot was supposed to be even more political. Its title was to be “Jane Walker,” which implies that its themes concerned gender equality and women breaking boundaries. This message would have been particularly timely if Hillary Clinton had won the election, but that didn’t happen. These sources claim that client and agency had to scrap the campaign as soon as the result became clear on Tuesday night.
We have no idea what the alleged work would have entailed, and now it will almost certainly never be seen by the public.
Anomaly has not responded to queries regarding the campaign. We also reached out to Johnnie Walker’s parent company Diageo earlier today but have yet to receive a reply.