Whisky distiller Diagio’s decision to have their iconic striding man walk out of Kilmarnock after a 150 year association could prove short sighted as a PR backlash against their plans threatens.

Johnnie Walker may be the world’s favourite Scotch but the decision to move out of its home town is leaving a bitter after taste.
 
They wouldn’t be the first company to see their product loose its flavour with the buying public after an ill judged business decision based on bottom line statistics alone.

The company are planning to close their bottling plant and move packaging operations to Fife with the loss of 700 jobs along with the closure of their Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow with the loss of around 150 positions.

The business reasoning of consolidation, merger and economies of scale may all make sound financial sense in the boardroom.

But companies in all sectors forget at their peril that consumers aren’t buying a product; they are buying a brand, buying into a lifestyle.

There are more than 200 brands of Scotch whisky on the market, arguably 70% of them as good a product as Johnnie Walker.
 
So why do consumers make Johnny Walker the world number one, which combined their Red, Black and speciality labels shifted more than 130 million bottles around the world last year.

Well, partly they are buying a product with a long and distinguished bond with a geographic area.

If this bond is broken consumers will feel they are not buying the same product. Once that feeling of familiarity is diminished then it becomes all too easy to switch brands.

Ignoring consumer buying behaviour is a lesson that one of Scotch’s main rivals, cognac, learned to its cost in the valuable Far East market.

Courvoisier had what seemed like an unassailable lead in the premium sprits market in Hong Kong, when a few years ago a French newspaper article criticised the way Hong Kong drinkers enjoyed their favourite tipple, with coke.

When the company did nothing to defend the rights of the consumers to enjoy their product anyway they chose, demand collapsed overnight and drinkers very quickly found a new tipple to mix with coke, Scotch.

It would be a disaster for the industry in Scotland if such a short sighted decision by Diageo resulted in a similar free fall from grace. Less for the company than for the thousands of workers who still give their dedication to producing what can’t be argued is a world class product.

However, if this media fuelled backlash gathers pace then it could ultimately result in a world class product with a significantly smaller market share.