Keep walking, Johnnie – but make space for Jane Walker!

Diageo PLC plans to roll out a female-branded version of its Johnnie Walker scotch brand called Jane Walker, the latest move by the liquor giant to woo female drinkers.

Diageo, the world's biggest spirits maker, on Monday said Jane Walker, a limited-edition version of Johnnie Walker Black Label, will go on sale in the US starting next month. The company, which also owns Smirnoff vodka and Bulleit bourbon, has revamped the iconic Johnnie Walker logo for the first time in over a century to show a woman in boots mid-stride tipping her hat.

Diageo is hoping the move will widen the appeal of the product while celebrating women, said Stephanie Jacoby, vice president of Johnnie Walker.

''Scotch as a category is seen as particularly intimidating by women,'' Jacoby told Bloomberg. ''It's a really exciting opportunity to invite women into the brand.''

The marketing stunt comes on the heels of a Diageo campaign called #LoveScotch, which has splashed pictures of attractive young women drinking Scotch together across billboards, social media and magazines in dozens of countries.

''We realized we should be successfully and actively marketing to women,'' said Diageo's chief marketing officer, Syl Saller, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year. ''That's been really positive for us particularly in categories that would have been considered more masculine, like scotch.''

The share of US whiskey drinkers who are women moved up to 29.6 per cent in 2016 from 28.2 per cent in 2010, according to Nielsen.

''As whiskeys have expanded and experimented with new flavours, such as honey, maple, cinnamon and apple, it has helped attract more women to the drink,'' said Danny Brager, who heads Nielsen's US beverage alcohol practice.

Diageo isn't alone in putting a female face on a traditionally male mascot. KFC, the fried-chicken chain run by Yum! Brands Inc., tapped country singer Reba McEntire in January to appear as Colonel Sanders in its latest marketing campaign.

The Jane Walker bottle will be available across the US at $34 for a 750 ml bottle, the same price as the regular Johnnie Walker Black Label.

Johnnie Walker for decades marketed its scotch mainly to men. A 1988 ad for the scotch brand reads: ''He loves my mind. And he drinks Johnnie Walker.'' The caption was incongruously accompanied by a picture of the backs of two women in bikinis on a beach, The Wall Street Journal points out.

The Jane Walker launch is the latest part of the brand's ''Keep Walking America'' push, which began in 2016, according to Bloomberg. The campaign is an attempt to speak to a broader audience, with ads spotlighting Latinos and veterans.

Scotch whisky volumes grew 2.1 per cent between 2002 and 2017 in the US, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the US, a trade organization. And Johnnie Walker has outpaced many competitors, growing 18 per cent last year - boosted by a revival of cocktail culture.

Diageo, based in London, also is looking to increase female representation internally. Its board will be 50 per cent women in April, Jacoby said. The company also is calling on advertising agencies to put forward at least one female director as part of any work pitch.

Jane Walker will appear on 250,000 bottles nationwide in March. For every bottle produced, Diageo is donating a dollar to organisations that promote women, including Monumental Women and She Should Run. While this batch of bottles is a limited run, this isn't the last of Jane.

''We really see Jane as the first female iteration of our striding-man icon,'' Jacoby said. ''We like to think of our striding man and our striding woman as really walking together going forward.''

In recent years, Diageo has shifted gears to make its products more attractive to women. ''The way we do that is not by making things pink. It is by being very inclusive in our communications, targeting women and men with our communications,'' said Saller.

To develop its Haig Club whisky brand, Diageo in 2014 teamed up with David Beckham, after research showed the footballer appealed to both men and women. A recent TV ad for Haig Club, narrated by a woman, rattles off the rules dictating how whisky should be drunk, including that ''whisky is a man's drink.'' The accompanying images show both men and women drinking whisky.

The alcohol industry's new focus on women isn't uncontroversial. Public-health researchers and campaigners point to physiological differences that make women more vulnerable to harm from alcohol consumption than men.

Women the same size and weight as men are more likely to become drunk off the same amount of booze because female bodies have more fat and less water, according to the National Institutes of Health. This means alcohol produces a higher blood alcohol level in women than in men.

There will be advertising support for Jane Walker in print publications such as the New Yorker and Time magazine. The brand will also feature at events such as the coming Women In Film Pre-Oscar Party, toasting all female Oscar nominees.