They were aiming high; they had set their sights on the US market, the most competitive vodka market in the world, but also the most lucrative. The US consumes more than 60% of all vodka produced in the western world. Consumption patterns in the US showed that while overall spirits consumption was decreasing, consumption of premium vodka was increasing. The decision was made to market Absolut Vodka as a premium product with a long tradition, meant for a discerning consumer. It was the first time in this century that Sweden had exported any alcoholic beverage on such a large basis.
At first, the ideas centered around the traditional Swedish origins of the brand. There were a number of early suggestions including "Swedish Blonde Vodka", with pillaging Vikings on the label and "Royal Court Vodka", a frosted carafe. There was even a bottle wrapped in paper.
None of these ideas was felt to adequately communicate the product and its tradition. Marketing surveys carried out showed that the time was definitely right for a premium vodka. There was a clearly discernible consumer trend towards "white" spirits as opposed to "brown" spirits; clearer spirits were seen as being purer and healthier. There was a niche for premium vodka waiting to be developed. But the question of how to package and market it still remained.
American experts were called in. They recommended modern-looking packaging with a bright, colorful label that would stand out on the shelf. They recommended a royal touch, mimicking so many of the "Czar themes" on the market at the time. The Swedish team was less than thrilled. Gradually, they came to realize that the answer was much the same as the concept created 100 years earlier by Lars Olsson Smith.
The breakthrough came when a bottle was finally chosen. Like many breakthroughs it came purely by chance and in retrospect seems almost too obvious.
Advertising man Gunnar Broman was looking through an antique shop window in Stockholm's "Old Town" when he saw an old Swedish medicine bottle, a cultural icon was unchanged for more than a hundred years. The bottle was elegant, different, simple and very Swedish. In the 16th and 17th centuries vodka had been sold in pharmacies as medicine to cure everything from colic to the plague.
The choice was a stroke of genius. Several Swedish designers were given the job of helping the Absolut Vodka team further develop the bottle. It had been decided that there should be no label to hide the crystal clear contents. After much discussion and several prototypes the team came to the conclusion that some kind of colored lettering was required. Blue was decided upon as a the most visible and attractive color, the color that is still used today for the famous Absolut Vodka logo.
Absolut vodka has been around since the late nineteenth century, but the Absolut most of us know was propelled to fame by their iconic campaign with ad agency TBWA, which ran for a mind-boggling 25 years. If you were around in the ’80s and ’90s, chances are you saw the ads somewhere – plastered on a billboard, stamped on the back of a magazine. It didn’t matter if you were a legal drinker or an elementary school kid collecting them – you saw the ads, you admired them. This was the rare marketing campaign that was culturally appreciated. The ads were both visually adamant yet predictable and wonderfully simple. You remember them, don’t you? Each one featured a depiction of an Absolut bottle with some sort of theme, then the theme stated explicitly under the picture.
The ads were works of genuine artistry. Indeed, Absolut commissioned Andy Warhol and other prominent artists to design branded creations for the Swedish vodka. Absolut was the vodka for artists and musicians – rich artists and musicians – and those who aspired to live like them. The ads showed sophistication and luxury, but it was always a subtle luxury, a sort of alternative coolness. It was even referenced in Rent’s song La Vie Boheme, “To Absolut – to choice – To the Village Voice…” It was the vodka equivalent of a hippy in a Porsche: opulence with a soul, or, alternatively, corporate bohemianism. However you want to think of it, the ad campaign worked. Absolut was cool. U.S. sales jumped from 10,000 cases sold in 1980, to 4.5 million cases sold in 2000.
Grey Goose has never outsold Absolut in the U.S. according to Euromonitor, but it is coming progressively closer to doing so. Perhaps this is in part due to Goose gaining more cultural visibility than Absolut from the early twenty-first century to today. Absolut concluded their epic TBWA campaign, in part because, as Tåhlin told me when I recently visited the Elyx house, “all good things must come to an end,” because digitization was turning print ads progressively more obsolete, but perhaps, also because “artsy” advertising was no longer resonating with their target demographic. It’s no coincidence that Goose’s popularity coincided with the age of reality television. A new trend had started: the trend of obviousness, putting everything out on the table, and shamelessly showing off. Remember, this was a time when labels were king. To wear Abercrombie & Fitch and its offshoots was to don a status symbol. What was actually good about the clothes, the vodka, and Paris Hilton? No one really knew, but that wasn’t the point. You were paying for a name, not a valued product.