What is Johnnie Walker Princes Street?
- Johnnie Walker Princes Street (JWPS) is an eight-floor visitor experience for the world’s best-selling Scotch whisky
- It is the centrepiece of Diageo’s £185 million investment in Scotch whisky tourism in Scotland (announced in 2018)
- Part of JWPS’s mission is to introduce Scotch whisky to potential new fans and challenge traditional perceptions.
- One of its innovations is the Journey of Flavour tour, where visitors have their personal flavour preferences mapped with drinks tailored to their palate whilst exploring the 200-year history of Johnnie Walker
You’re now 100 days into the role of Managing Director, Scotland Brand Homes. While I know you are building a wider Scotland Brand Homes strategy, we have reached two significant landmarks at JWPS. What were your initial thoughts on the site when you first started?
My first thought was about the opportunity we have here. Diageo has very few truly direct-to-consumer businesses around the world. We have malts.com we have the Irish Brand Homes. But really our expertise is in B2B. At Johnnie Walker Princes Street we own the full end-to-end consumer journey and the thought of what more we can do with this opportunity really excites me.
My other initial thought was how we can support the wider GB and Luxury business. Having worked in global travel you get first-hand experience of how enormous Johnnie Walker is around the world. But Johnnie Walker is a relatively small brand in its home market. So, I see part of our role is to work with the domestic markets to pull Johnnie Walker up to the same level of iconicity and fame that Guinness has in Ireland.
And then what about the JWPS operation itself?
Now I’m getting under the skin of the actual operation, so much is about the people – they really make this business. Now I know this is true across all of our operations – but when you’re facing consumers every single day, as they are, it’s especially true. If you go on the Journey of Flavour Tour experience, everything from the tour guides, the actors who tell the story of Johnnie Walker, to the people who serve the drinks: the people are absolutely vital. Their passion to do a brilliant job for our visitors is so important.
Is JWPS succeeding in its mission to recruit new fans to Scotch and challenge traditional perceptions?
Absolutely. We are really proud of our Net Promoter Score [a trusted metric for measuring customer experience] of 85. We have also measured brand conversion metrics, which have shown that 91% of visitors’ perception of Johnnie Walker has improved post visit. Analysis of visitor numbers has also shown a nearly 50/50 male and female gender split And it is succeeding in breaking down barriers including those around how the drink should be enjoyed by focusing on cocktail culture.
And I think it’s fair to point to number of awards and accolades that we have achieved in the last three years. This includes the 5-star VisitScotland accreditation, the Icons of Whisky award for World Visitor Attraction of the Year 2023, the World’s Leading Spirit Tourism Experience 2023 and this year we were awarded the Outstanding Achievement for Brand Experience category in the 30th Annual Themed Entertainment Association Awards.
What do you see in the future for JWPS – what do the next three years look like?
There are four areas of focus for me that I will build further success:
- Consumer-led growth
We’ve had a million people through the doors already. But as we look at the growth potential of Johnnie Walker Princes Street, we know we can be much bigger. We’ve still got a lot of room to grow – I think we can be four times as big. And that will be a combination of more footfall coming through the doors and building recruitment.
- Build the Food & Beverage offer
I see a role for JWPS becoming world famous for its food and drink offer; getting to the point where if people are coming to Edinburgh, they want an absolutely outstanding meal with an unparalleled view of the castle and a brilliant whisky tasting experience, then without question they’re coming to JWPS.
- Retail
We have an incredible opportunity from a retail perspective. The store at the ground level of JWPS is an amazing innovation. Diageo, globally, doesn’t have many direct-to-consumer retail premises. So the lessons we take from building sales in this retail space means our role should then be to inform the rest of the Diageo world on what great Scotch retail looks like. We can be the pioneers for Johnnie Walker retail – not just the test bed.
- Bar and cocktail culture
Diageo doesn’t own many direct-to-consumer bar offerings around the world either. Here we have Diageo employees working in our bar innovating with whisky. We have Emma Walker, Consumer Experience Manager, Scotch, coming in and working with them on the best cocktails to go with certain whiskies. We believe we could play a really vibrant role in cocktail culture, both in terms of creating an amazing activation in Edinburgh, but also creating stuff that can be socialized around the whole world for Diageo. And then there is the food matching element. Whisky and food hasn’t traditionally been a common bedfellow. But actually we see that as a really key opportunity for us up here, and so you know whether it’s making brilliant mixed cocktails that go with a certain course, or having it at the end of a brilliant meal.
