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Selling the attitude of a brand- The Absolut Vodka example An Absolut Cultural Icon Bayo Adekanmbi

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Selling the attitude of a brand- The Absolut Vodka example

An Absolut

Cultural IconBayo Adekanmbi

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What is this Absolut nonsense?

• Absolut Vodka´s advertising campaign is the world´s longest ever uninterrupted

• To this date, it comprises 1,450 original ads

• Developed by TBWA over the past 25 odd years

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Different things build brands, but this is Absolut truth

• Advertising (e.g., Absolut Vodka)• Sponsorships (e.g., Kodak and Olympics)

• Clubs and consumer communities(e.g., Harley Davidson, iVillage)

• Factory visits (e.g., Cadbury’s theme park)• Public facilities (e.g., Nestle Nestops)

• Social causes (e.g., American Express)• High value for the money (e.g. Ikea)

• Founder’s personality (e.g., Richard Branson)

Absolut Vodka was built exclusively by the power of creative advertising! Advertising creativity provided the platform that was explored via sponsorship, activation ,PR etc.

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What is the category?

• Vodka is the world’s most popular spirit drink

• Vodka is legally defined in the US as a tasteless, odorless, colorless alcohol.

– most undifferentiated liquor that you can have

• Growing market sophistication– More and more brands and variants appear as the category becomes increasingly

innovative.– Many products (and even methods of distribution) are becoming commodities.

• To that end, branding often seems to be the only way to create customer appeal and loyalty, and allow you to put premium prices on something that would be hard to distinguish on an objective basis from your competitors’ offerings.

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1879 Swedish businessman Lars Olsson Smith introduced a new kind of vodka, which he called Absolute Pure Vodka.

Olsson was a success story indeed - Successful businessman at 10 and entrepreneurat 14

Lars Olsson Smith controlled one third ofall the vodka in Sweden while he was stilllearning to shave.

For almost half of the 19th century he was known as “The King of Vodka”

Developed a revolutionary new distillation method called Rectification

Redefined the distribution chain (away from Stockholm)

The bottle design was a prototype of an old Swedish medicine bottle (superior performance???)

The Absolut heritage!!!

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The Product Truth

• We all know that vodka is vodka—even when shaken

• But Absolut has created a brand out of the shape of a bottle, consistently presented across all forms of media (and all flavors of product).

• Great heritage of market redefinition

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Marketing issues at relaunch

• After 100 years , it was relaunched and this came with its challenges viz– Swedish vs Russian origin

• Russian owns vodka/spirit, where cometh a Swedish player?

– Premium positioning for a commodity???

– Awkward bottle for bartenders to use• A pharmaceutical bottle for a drink!

– Perceived as a cheap, tasteless

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What was the Absolut strategy?

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Brand image or personality is particularly important when brands are similar

“Every ad must contribute to the complex symbol that is the brand image.”

Brand image or personality is particularly important when brands are similar

Absolut validity from Adsolut men

© 2003 McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., McGraw-Hill/Irwin

David Ogilvy

Find the inherent drama or characteristic of the product that makes consumers buy it

“(Inherent drama) is often hard to find but it is always there, and once found it is the most interesting and believable of all advertising appeals.”

Leo Burnett

Find a compelling story that bonds the brand to the consumers

The story must be relevant. Original and impactful to establish that eternal bond

Bill Bernbach

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The Absolut Brand evolution

• Symbolic– The iconic product

meaning

• Imagery– An elevated and definite

lifestyle projection

• Social authority– Addressing cultural

contradictions

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Symbolic – The unique medicine bottle celebrates Vodka Purity

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Anyone Can Contribute to The Absolut World –the power of user generated content

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Other Spoofs

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2005 transition to Imagery platform -The Absolutes Campaign

• Entrenched depositioning by the super-premium niche players

• Need to “own”, celebrate and flaunt Absolut ideal lifestyle – Prestige ads with upscale image as a Super premium ‘badge’ brand– The ads likened the vodka to stars like Marilyn Monroe and Steve McQueen and

landmarks like the Statue of Liberty– Increased sales by 2% compared with 2005.– Validated with new flavours

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The need for upmarket and vertical market

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2007- the Absolut Social transition

"In An Absolut World" campaign, features photos from a world where everything is as fantastic as Absolut.

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• Absolut, has fallen to the No 2 vodka brand in the world, having lost customers to Grey Goose, Belvedere, Ketel One and other upstart luxury brands.

The need to show Absolut as the ideal vodka in a landscape crowded with luxury upstarts

• The global campaign allows ABSOLUT to communicate the brand’s leadership position and premium quality, while at the same time allowing consumers to now take part in the discussion. “In An Absolut World” sparks conversation and challenges consumers to express their visions of the world—The ABSOLUT World.

Background

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In an Absolut world you can tell when Politicians lie...

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In an Absolut world you can tell when Politicians lie...

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Social transition platform was also leveraged to drive new line extensions

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Social responsibility dimension - TAXI

• The new campaign also includes an industry-leading social responsibility broadcast spot.

• “Taxi,” the spot illustrates a young couple exiting a club. As they press the key fob, instead of unlocking their car it signals a taxi, suggesting that in an “ABSOLUT World” people would always call a cab or use a designated driver after they drink.

• This was also activated as “The campaign speaks to consumers on multiple levels. The topics range in scale and tone but use the same clever voice ABSOLUT has used for more than 25 years,” adds Murphy.

• Watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtdAu5QHST0

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The result and the continuous challenge

• According to the most recent Brand Keys survey, Absolut ranks 7th in customer loyalty among brands of imported vodka

• Among those ahead of Absolut are newer, more expensive vodkas like Ciroq, Ketel One and Grey Goose, which are faring better in a category driven by consumer desire for “novelty and uniqueness.”

• The “Absolut ____” campaign helped the brand become the best-selling imported vodka in the United States as distribution soared from 20,000 cases in 1981 to almost 5 million last year

• Absolut also grew to become the No. 3 spirits brand of any kind, behind only Bacardi rum and Smirnoff (domestic) vodka. More recently, Absolut fell to 4TH place over all, as Captain Morgan rum moved ahead.

• Over 40 awards and several institutional endowments

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• Successful, long-running campaign

• Image created made people want to experience by drinking Absolut Vodka

• Attracted attention• Familiarity with the bottle• Success due to being

contemporary

• Advertising tiredness• People might get

annoyed from the ads, rather than interested and attracted

• No response from viewers of the ad, as the ad is not adapted to the current trend and taste.

��

• Even people who didn’t understand the objective of the ad, were able to identify the bottle!

• Easy to recall the brand when buying liquor

• Stylish, humorous and innovative ad attributes

• Image = Experience

• Company can be perceived as “boring”, due to the same ads

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• Ad adapts to the current trend and taste, thus increasing the number of interested people.

• As people hear that there is a new advertisement (also from mouth to mouth) for Absolut, they want to know what it is

• People need to adapt to the new ads

• Loyalty and familiarity need to be re-gained

• Costly to develop a whole new successful campaign

• High expectations due to previous ad success

• Possibility to get another “boom” in advertising history

• Risky (cost vs. failure)

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References

• www.absolutads.com• http://blog.futurelab.net/2008/02/why_the_absolut_campaig

n_switc.html• http://zero-zed.blogspot.com/2007/12/brand-new-absolut-

world.html• http://www.brandchannel.com/features_profile.asp?pr_id=6

0• www.ronnestam.com/2007/11/06/an-absolut-but-tragic-

change-in-advertising-strategy/• http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2006/nf20

060116_1577_db039.htm• home.aubg.bg/students/EMT070/The_Absolut_Vodka.ppt• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p0QtJMKt1s• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSbb9U6GPXE• Absolut advertising campaign by Elena Toncheva (ppt)

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This isn't Absolut nonsense, its really an Absolut truth for the knowledge-drunk ad-holics

Absolutly yours

Bayo AdekanmbiED, Strategy/BusinessDDB Lagoshttp://naijaQ.blogspot.com