Paul Walsh, the man who has a knack for selling Scotch in good times and bad, was feeling rather pleased with himself on Thursday.

While UBS’s banking executives feared for their futures after the bank reported a record loss, Diageo’s chief executive was explaining why exactly his drinks company was resilient to a global economic downturn.

“Investors like our business – it’s simple ... we buy ingredients, bottle them and sell them.”

As Mr Walsh points out, if a typical household only buys about three bottles of Scotch to drink at home each year, they’re unlikely to stop buying when the economy weakens. He also argues that many people don’t want to know about economic problems.

“Everyone is focused on subprime, monoline, $400bn write-offs ... to a lot of people it’s a total irrelevance. They don’t understand it, and they don’t want to understand it,” he said.

Mr Walsh was perhaps being a little disingenuous. There is more to the story of Diageo’s strong growth over the past year.

First, the company has improved its marketing. It is spending more money – about 17 per cent of its total sales are put towards marketing, the most it has ever spent – and its campaigns are better, in part due to the company’s increased used of what Mr Walsh calls “boutique digital agencies”.

Diageo is investing more money in online campaigns, such as Smirnoff Experience, which is a competition rewarding winners with the chance to spend a year travelling around the world, looking for “the most original and unique” nightlife.

Over the past few years, its television ads have also become more sophisticated – which means that they are more likely to be picked up on websites such as YouTube, and giving the company free publicity.

On Thursday Diageo showed a television ad it has been running in China for its Johnnie Walker whisky brand. The ad was set in an architect’s firm, and showed the firm’s partners firing one of its most talented employees so he could fulfil his “destiny” of becoming a filmmaker. The ad – which is the first in a four-part series – encouraged viewers to “Keep Walking ... to your destiny”.

Mr Walsh said the actors and actresses in the ad reflected China’s emerging middle class. “They are what people aspire to be ... successful, attractive, well-dressed,” he said.

In Russia, Diageo launched a new marketing campaign for Johnnie Walker Black. And in its core US market, Diageo is targeting different ethnic groups by tailoring ad campaigns to African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans.

Emerging markets are the second factor behind Diageo’s strong sales, particularly for Scotch, which accounts for a quarter of its global sales. “The performance of our international region is nothing short of outstanding ... increasingly, consumers have the purchasing power to buy brands that they aspire to,” Mr Walsh said, adding that he believed emerging markets were largely “growing under their own steam”.

“There were times [we thought] if the US slowed down, Brazil would collapse ... it isn’t happening.”

Operating profits grew 16 per cent in the first half in Diageo’s international region, which includes Latin America, Africa and the Middle East but not Asia. In India, sales volumes were up 28 per cent as the group develops its locally bottled business and expands its salesforce. In China, it is investing in a wider range of brands than in the past, and created a separate operating business, Diageo China.

Diageo has moved more slowly into China than its key competitor, Pernod Ricard, but it is now making up for its tardiness.