After James Marsden landed the position of Cyclops within the 2000 blockbuster movie X-Males, he toasted the then-biggest milestone of his profession with the priciest whisky the actor may afford, Macallan 12 Yr Outdated.
“I needed to commemorate that second by having one thing very particular,” Marsden recalled in an interview with Quick Firm. “It’s not one thing I do usually, toasting my achievements. However I felt very proud and needed to recollect the second.”
Marsden has performed the mutant superhero position in three subsequent live-action Marvel movies and is poised to take action once more in Avengers:Doomsday, which is scheduled to be launched in December 2026. This yr, the Sonic the Hedgehog and 27 Clothes star finds himself sipping Macallan but once more, this time as a paid pitchman in a brand new promoting spot known as “Drink of a Era.” The marketing campaign will run on Instagram, the place Macallan says ages 25 to 34 are the most-reached demographic.
Forward of Father’s Day, which is a well-liked gift-giving event for Scotch, the advert’s copy leans into the intergenerational theme, with Marsden noting that his father has “a love for the finer issues.” However midway by, it’s the look of his Gen Z-aged son, Jack, that factors to a much bigger trade theme.
Scotch’s spokespeople are lastly getting youthful.
“What we have to guarantee is that we’re related and that we proceed speaking to a youthful era and produce them into our story,” Marcelo Colombo, senior vice chairman of marketing for the Americas enterprise of Macallan’s mum or dad firm Edrington, tells Quick Firm. “We’re speaking to a wider era, not simply the era of James Marsden.”
Different Gen Z and youthful millennial-aged Scotch promoting stars embody Method 1 driver Charles Leclerc, who serves as global brand ambassador for Chivas Regal underneath a multi-year partnership, and Puerto Rico singer Rauw Alejandro, who linked up with Buchanan’s for a FIFA World Cup-inspired campaign that debuted in April. Pop star Sabrina Carpenter is crooning for Johnnie Walker, whereas actor Thomas Doherty and Jamaican mannequin Miqueal-Symone Williams starred in The Glenlivet’s most recent advertising push.
“I welcome that the class and rivals are doing the identical factor,” says Colombo. “What we wish to do is recruit extra individuals into the class.”
“It’s about time,” Luke Tegner, head of consulting at alcohol information supplier IWSR, tells Quick Firm in regards to the new star energy that’s been featured in latest Scotch campaigns. “Movie star and influencers have a serious affect in our trade and have been fantastically highly effective, specifically, for gin, tequila, and RTDs [ready to drink].”
The Scotch trade suffered underneath a tariff-induced hangover after the implementation of a ten% import tax on whisky that went into impact in April 2025. Increased costs on the shelf led quantity within the U.S. to tumble 9.2% in 2025 from the prior-year interval, in response to the commerce group the Scotch Whisky Affiliation. The trade did breathe a sigh of aid in April 2026, when President Donald Trump announced on Reality Social that he would take away the tariffs on Scotch after a state go to from King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Tegner takes an excellent longer view on Scotch’s woes, saying IWSR’s information reveals that the whisky’s exports dropped from 13 million circumstances in 1990 to simply 6.7 million in 2025. Whereas single malt Scotch and newer flavors, like Buchanan’s Pineapple, have resonated with some drinkers, general Individuals are way more more likely to gravitate to bourbon and Irish whiskeys.
“The long-term pattern for Scotch is one among submit maturity and decline,” Tegner tells Quick Firm. “That’s why we’re seeing lots of manufacturers making an attempt very exhausting to get new customers as they’re making an attempt to get share throughout the Scotch class, and likewise to attempt to reverse that long-term drop off.”
Final fall, liquor large Diageo revived its well-known Johnnie Walker “Keep Walking” campaign, however advanced the marketing campaign language away from a give attention to linear, career-driven milestones that will have resonated with older millennials, and as an alternative favored the Gen Z-friendly terrain of embracing vulnerability and even failure. “We noticed the chance, with the Gen Z client in thoughts, to essentially refresh a 25-year, long-running line,” Jesse Damashek, SVP of promoting for Diageo’s North America whiskey portfolio, tells Quick Firm.
Johnnie Walker says the model’s U.S. Scotch market share grew from 24% to 26% from when the marketing campaign debuted in November by April 2026, citing information from NielsenIQ and the Nationwide Alcohol Beverage Management Affiliation.
Damashek says the model’s different efforts to evolve embody new innovation, together with the brand new Johnnie Walker Black Cask blended Scotch that debuted in February, which options vanilla, caramel, and spice that’s extra aligned with the American palette. Johnnie Walker can also be embracing newer cocktails just like the Go Go Highball, which was concocted in collaboration with Carpenter and mixes whisky with ginger ale, bitter cherry juice and garnished with black cherries.
“We’re seeking to simply construct extra versatility into the broader Johnnie Walker portfolio,” says Damashek. Working with Carpenter, he provides, “supplies a very nice reframe of how customers can see Scotch displaying up in several events and cocktails. She’s bringing in a way more various client when it comes to her broad-based enchantment.”
In June, Laphroaig can also be leaning into the inter-generational theme, operating a paid influencer marketing campaign on Instagram that options actual fathers and sons.
“We’ve heard numerous tales from whisky drinkers that they had been launched to Laphroaig by their father or grandfather,” Steve Belfiglio, senior director for status manufacturers at Laphroaig proprietor Suntory World Spirits, tells Quick Firm. He provides the marketing campaign is supposed to remind youthful, authorized ingesting age customers that Scotch “isn’t only for dad, nevertheless it’s for you too.”
Marsden, in the meantime, shares that when he was youthful and on the hunt for a buzz, “you’re ingesting crappy wine or beer.” However his style buds have turn out to be extra subtle and he prefers to drink Macallan both neat, which implies fully alone in a glass at room temperature, or with a small ice dice.
The recommendation he shares with Jack and his Gen Z friends is easy: “When you’ve gotten a glass of this type of whisky, it’s one thing to savor.”
