Whisky brands are paying for campaigns made by firms outside Scotland

The National

27-05-2025

Our leading food and drink export product, Scotch flies the flag for Scotland around the world. Trump's tariffs might bite but to me this was sounding like a whisky 'galorious' good news story, until I watched a wee TikTok video the other day. A Day In The Life Of A Cinematographer Living in London is a very revealing snapshot of why Scotland's whisky producers are failing Scottish creative talent. As the protagonist trains it north, he tells us that Scotland hits him like a cinematic dream.
He's part of a London-based film crew parachuted into Moray to film an advert for The Glenrothes Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky which, according to its website, is 'The world's most elegant whisky', as envisioned by its founders 150 years ago. Scottish whisky, London crew!
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On his arrival, before a single frame is shot, there's a crash course in whisky production. I was ahead of him here, having spent a summer after my first year at Glasgow Uni working as a kilted Glenfiddich Distillery tour guide in Dufftown back in 1987.
I can still remember the skill it took, when the Saga coach tours pulled in, to avoid the wandering hands of hordes of elderly ladies who had little desire to hear how whisky is made but plenty of intent on making me blush.
The young cinematographer learns that the essential ingredient is the exceptionally pure water naturally filtered through volcanic bedrock and sourced straight from the grounds of The Glenrothes Estate. Scottish rock!
This liquid's 50% softer than the bottled stuff and, of course, what comes out of London taps, our narrator informs us. Scottish water! The whisky is crafted by a small, dedicated team of lifelong whisky makers. Scottish team, Scottish craft!
The ad is eventually filmed and at the end of the day the production team dashes home to London. Except for our man who, bless, has to spend the night in Aberdeen before lugging all the camera kit down the following day. London camera kit!
Watching this video got me wondering. What on Earth was a London film crew doing in Speyside filming a Scotch whisky commercial? Isn't there lots of creative and production talent – not to mention camera hire companies – here in Scotland that could've done the job and supplied the kit? What's going on?
Scotland's whisky makers spend a fortune on marketing, two to five times their budgets for distilling and bottling their products according to one insider.
It adds up to billions. This ought to be great news for Scotland's creative talent who absolutely have the skills and craft to produce impactful campaigns and content.
But it's not. Investigating more than a dozen whisky brands including some of the biggest names in the business, I discovered they've all paid for publicity campaigns over recent years almost exclusively made by ad agencies, production companies and directors based outside Scotland.
The results of my snap survey are a shocking revelation. There's one notable exception, LS Productions in Edinburgh, which was a production partner on a recent ad for Glenmorangie featuring Harrison Ford and the production company on another for Highland Park.
But the overwhelming picture is one where Scotland's whisky producers aren't spending their enormous marketing budgets on Scottish creative talent.
Scotland's geology, the water and the barley, masterfully combined by the age-old craft of the malters, mashers, coopers, distillers and the blenders, are what define our national spirit. They are its DNA and have been advertised as such by the industry for centuries.
Yet our whisky companies aren't extending this reverence to the equally prodigious talents of Scotland's creatives. Enshrined in law, the process to create single malt Scotch whisky must be done at one location. But when the English Whisky Guild recently applied for the same protected status, Scots distillers were up in arms, fearing the reputation of their products would be damaged because proposals for English whisky are said not to have the same requirements.
The Scotch Whisky Association even recently called for the UK and Scottish governments to protect its bottom line in the face of consumer spending tightening, increased domestic tax and regulation, and turbulent global trade.
But its members ought to be doing more to help Scotland's struggling creatives who are facing far more existential threats. It smacks of double standards, a betrayal of sorts, to me and many colleagues working in advertising, film and TV production here in Scotland.
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There are historical reasons why our whisky makers have turned their back on Scotland's creative talent. After the 2008 financial crisis, ad spend was severely reduced as costs were cut. Scottish ad agencies folded and talent left for London.
Companies such as Diageo, the largest producer of whisky, got used to working with creatives outside Scotland or brought a proportion of their agency work in-house. The owner of Johnnie Walker, the world's best-selling Scotch which became one of the UK's top five most valuable brands in 2023, Diageo spends approximately £3 billion every year on marketing.
Very little of this budget, I presume, is spent here given that its recent Keep Walking and Bold Steps campaigns were made by creative talent based outside Scotland.
But imagine how many jobs would be created and sustained in Scotland if a lot more of this spend was invested instead in our creative talent. This is exactly what I'm calling for Scotland's whisky makers to do. Being Scottish is what makes them distinctively world class. They bank on it.
Likewise, Scotland's ad agencies, production companies, producers, directors and cinematographers, have barrel loads of conceptual and production skills to meet the brief.
Scotland's extraordinary creative talent and its whisky producers can work together to be a perfect blend. Like a great malt in the making, this is a relationship that deserves to mature over time so that both enjoy good health. Slàinte Mhath!
Peter Strachan is a Bafta-nominated film director and producer who sits on the board of trade body Directors UK