Johnnie Walker's Rock in Rio activation inside Cidade Alta. The brand's first official step into the gamingverse, built inside one of Brazil's biggest GTA RP servers. For Rock in Rio, Johnnie Walker moved into Cidade Alta, one of Brazil's largest GTA RP servers, not as an advertiser but as a destination players could actually visit. The brand got its own two-floor bar on top of the tallest tower on the map, crowned by a giant Striding Man, and players got a reason to climb up: the Highball Mission, a jetpack quest to collect the ingredients, mix the Black Tonic Highball, and unlock an exclusive jacket skin to keep for good. From there the experience crossed into the real world at BGC3, the first in-person edition of LOUD Coringa's Baguncinha festival, where Johnnie Walker ran a full live-marketing takeover built on VIP booths, themed bars, and gamer mixology, with discount coupons routing the whole thing straight to Diageo's e-commerce (The Bar). The activation reached 200K concurrent and 1M unique viewers on Twitch and packed around 4,000 people on-site.
The opportunity
Johnnie Walker wanted to show up for a young, gaming-native audience around Rock in Rio, and a TV spot was never going to do it. In Brazil, a huge slice of Gen Z culture lives inside GTA RP servers, where players build whole second lives in real time. Cidade Alta, run by Outplay, is one of the largest. The play was not to run an ad inside the game, it was to live inside its story.
The idea
Instead of static product placement, integrate Johnnie Walker organically into the world and its narrative, so players would seek the brand out rather than skip past it. The brand would not be a banner, it would be a place you could visit, a mission you could play, and a piece you could wear.
The build
We gave the brand the best address in the city: an exclusive two-floor bar on top of the tallest skyscraper on the map. A monumental Striding Man statue stood on the roof as a landmark visible across the entire virtual city. Inside, neon lighting, modern lounges, and a pop-culture aesthetic carried the Keep Walking spirit.
The mission
To pull players in, we built a quest line: the Highball Mission. And we gave it the perfect vehicle: a jetpack, the campaign's official mode of transport and the element players talked about most. It was a direct nod to the legendary GTA San Andreas jetpack, one of the most beloved rare unlocks in the franchise's history, and it carried that same nostalgic thrill every GTA player chases. Players strapped in and flew across the skies of virtual Los Santos to track down the ingredients scattered across the map, tonic water and bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label, then landed straight on the rooftop to mix the campaign's hero serve, the Black Tonic Highball. Completing it permanently unlocked a reward worth chasing, an exclusive branded jacket skin players kept for good.
The reveal
The reveal. Before any physical event, the activation went live through the biggest voice in the room. LOUD Coringa, Brazil's top Twitch streamer, took his audience inside Cidade Alta on stream, revealed the Johnnie Walker partnership, and played the Highball Mission from start to finish, flying the jetpack across the city and throwing open the rooftop bar in real time. For his viewers, the brand was not an interruption between clips, it was the night's main quest, discovered live alongside the streamer they were already there to watch. This was the moment that drove the activation's Twitch reach.
the bridge to the real world
Later, the activation crossed into the physical world at BGC3, the first in-person edition of Coringa's Baguncinha festival, the GTA RP and streamer community's biggest night, in São Paulo. As a headline sponsor in front of a sold-out crowd of around 4,000 people, Johnnie Walker brought the virtual bar to life as a full-scale physical replica and ran a complete live-marketing operation around it: an exclusive VIP booth for influencers, pro players, and celebrity guests from LOUD and beyond, custom themed bars built into the festival's look, a gamer-minded mixology menu of easy, citrus-forward serves mixing whisky with tonic, soda, and energy drinks for a young palate, and Instagrammable photo moments anchored by the Striding Man reworked for the festival's neon, digital aesthetic. Integrated discount coupons linked the whole experience straight to The Bar, Diageo's official e-commerce platform, turning in-game engagement into real sales.
The results and why it matters
The activation reached 200K+ concurrent viewers and 1M+ unique viewers on Twitch, drew around 4,000 people on-site at BGC3, and built a direct line from the game world to the checkout. A premium whisky earned its place inside a young, skeptical gaming culture by playing by the world's rules instead of interrupting them. It broke the cliché of whisky as something formal and far away, tying Keep Walking to the path of the creators and players living it, and proved a brand can enter live game worlds as a participant, not a sponsor banner. Two hundred years of Keep Walking, turned into something a new generation could play, win, and wear.
In-Game Screenshots
My role: Creative Strategy, Content Strategy, In-game Strategy, Copywriting