Johnnie Walker, the world’s best-selling Scotch whisky, has announced a global partnership with pop star Sabrina Carpenter, marking one of its most visible efforts yet to capture younger legal-age consumers through music and culture. The campaign launches alongside the final leg of Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet tour and ties into the release of her new album Man’s Best Friend.
The multi-year collaboration will center on cocktail activations, tour tie-ins, and digital content designed to present Johnnie Walker Black Label through Carpenter’s lens of creativity and self-expression. According to Diageo, the partnership is the first in a planned series of collaborations with musicians meant to “shape the future of how and where people can enjoy Johnnie Walker.”
“Music plays such a meaningful role in everyone’s life journey, and it has always been a way of connecting people to Johnnie Walker’s ‘Keep Walking’ mantra,” John Williams, global head of whiskies at Diageo, said in a statement. “[Carpenter’s] fearless creativity and deep connection with a new generation make her a powerhouse addition to our Johnnie Walker family.”
The pop star echoed the sentiment, framing the collaboration as an extension of her own evolving public image. “Stepping into this next chapter of my music has been such a thrill,” she said in a statement. “This partnership is about celebrating boldly, pushing boundaries, and moving forward with purpose.”
At select stops on her current tour, fans 21 and over will be able to purchase cocktails such as whisky highballs, Manhattans, and sours, prepared with Black Label and branded as Carpenter’s own “signature” serves. Digital components of the campaign will include album-inspired content, video spots, and cocktail recipes designed for at-home mixing.
The move comes as Scotch faces a shifting global market. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, export volumes dropped nearly 9.5% in 2023, though total sales remained roughly the same. Similar trends were reported in the U.S. with the Distilled Spirits Council (DISCUS) reporting a 17.4% drop in volume from 2019 to 2024.
Diageo’s most recent earnings report noted that Johnnie Walker accounted for more than one in five bottles of Scotch exported worldwide, a sign of both the brand’s dominance and its need to sustain growth in a challenging environment.
Targeting new demographics through lifestyle partnerships has become a favored strategy for spirits companies seeking to expand beyond traditional whisky drinkers. Rival brands have sponsored music festivals, fashion campaigns, and digital collaborations, hoping to reframe whisky as a versatile spirit for cocktails rather than an exclusively neat pour.
Carpenter has had a banner run recently: she earned two Grammy Award last year, her last two albums topped the Billboard charts, and her tour has sold out arenas worldwide. Man’s Best Friend, which dropped yesterday, to number one on the charts, confirming the power of her digital footprint and highly engaged fan base. In theory, that also means Johnnie Walker gains access to millions of younger consumers who may not have considered Scotch as a category for them.
That’s the idea, anyway—but pairing a legacy Scotch brand with a pop artist isn’t exactly intuitive. Other similar campaigns in the space have tended to feature actors or musicians with established, older audiences, targeting the traditional whisky drinker.
So for Diageo, this partnership is a plan not necessarily to move cases in the short term, but to cement Johnnie Walker’s relevance for the next generation of drinkers. Whether it resonates will depend on whether fans see the alignment between a 200-year-old Scotch label and a 26-year-old pop star as natural or manufactured.