Who is this spokesdude for Tanqueray? Why, Tony Sinclair of course. "Tony who?" you might ask. I certainly did. Upon seeing the same commercial a number of times, I put on my "Detective Froggie" hat and got to work. Diageo's new ad agency for Tanqueray is Grey Worldwide. Incidentally, that's one of the few large U.S. based agencies for which I have not worked. Remember in the early '90s Tanqueray had a white haired gentleman it called "Mr. Jenkins" act as spokesperson? Jenkins might have been fine advertising to the core gin drinkers (older white men), but he did nothing to expand the market, and quietly faded away a few years later.

As the Tanqueray site says:

Tony Sinclair. Socialite extraordinaire, world traveler and the TANQUERAY Gin company’s best find ever. Armed with a witty line and a cocktail shaker, Tony is the master of the mix for TANQUERAY Gin.

Um, right. He's witty. He's urbane. He's a socialite. He's the master of the mix. He's young and black. He's the very antithesis of a gin drinker. Will he work as a spokes-character? I doubt it. There are four different ads featuring the Tony character.

If Diageo were as serious about expanding its market into the hip young urban set, it'd be better off hiring a rapper. Look what happened to cognac sales after Busta Rhymes came out with his song "Pass the Courvoisier." Now, in all fairness, in the late '80s "Yak & coke" was really popular among black 20- and 30-somethings. I used to work on the Hennessy account in those days, and that was the cognac demographic. Evidently, it still is.

A Diageo marketing bigwig claims the campaign hopes "to introduce a more contemporary and urban consumer to the house of Tanqueray." I trust at this point we all know what "urban" really means. It's going after the cognac demographic.

Back to Tony Sinclair: the guy's a foppish dude, so how on earth will he sell gin? Snoop Dogg already has a song called "Gin & Juice" in which he raps about the potency of "Tanqueray and chronic." Why not just hire Snoop Dogg?

Diageo has succeeded in getting people talking about the commercials, but are they buying the product? I tend to doubt it. Our friend Tony is always shown as the only black guy mingling at parties surrounded by a sea of white. Is Diageo trying to revive Tanqueray sales by turning it into the gin equivalent of Grey Goose, a brand of vodka that does sell well among young hipster white 20- and 30-somethings? Then why throw in a black spokes-character? It's as if the powers that be at Diageo don't really want to alienate the Grey Goose crowd, but want to hedge their bets by throwing in an unexpected spokesperson. My bet is that it works to sell gin to neither crowd.