ABSOLUT Integration

In 1980, the Absolut brand ran its first print ad in the U.S. -- the soft, iconic bottle was blessed by a glowing halo and tagged with the simple salute, "Absolut Perfection." The ad marked the beginning of an advertising platform and legacy that Absolut's merchandising team has not only shouldered but also carried -- in 3-D -- into stores.However, the brand is at a crossroads. The panache that Absolut possessed 25 years ago is lost on today's 21- to 29-year-old drinkers, who are driving vodka sales. Furthermore, in the last three years, upwards of 150 vodka brands have hit shelves, making it tough for any brand message to resonate, even one with an iconic, witty two-word payoff."I think the funniest thing is that everyone thinks it's easy to do an Absolut ad: 'It's a bottle with a clever line.' It's not. It becomes very difficult to get a message across," says Carol Giaconelli, director of marketing services for The Absolut Spirits Co., New York. "The brand is very witty, but it's very simple. Most ads are very quick to read and are very timely. So, it's been a challenge to come up with something that works every time -- and to be able to bring it to the point-of-sale, bring it to 3-D."The company's solution is integration. "We have a new direction for the brand," Giaconelli says. "For Absolut, we are coming out with programs that are totally integrated so that the message you see in advertising is the same message you'll see in the store. It may be the same message you see out at a bar and restaurant, or possibly at sampling opportunities, as well as in the PR and events." Earlier P-O-P, she adds, may have shared the same look and style as the print ads, but never were the messages and graphics entirely integrated.The new marketing strategy was sprinkled into some holiday and winter campaigns. It will fully hit this summer. "It's going to create a much stronger message for the brand," says Lorne Fisher, spokesman for Absolut. "The reality is Absolut is in itself 25 years old. Yes, everybody knows the brand when they see Absolut and the bottle, but the vodka category is ridiculously competitive -- a hell of a lot more than it was 25 years ago, so our message needs to be more direct as it relates to consumption."Our advertising and our messaging is going to be more specific than this glorious bottle in a print ad that says 'Absolut Blank.' It's going to carry a more specific message, and it will evolve so people will think of it and want to order it, not just think, 'Ooh, that's a cool ad.' "Will the new integrated message include the tagline theme? Giaconelli says to wait and see (at the time of the interview, the new marketing direction was still being sculpted).Fisher says it will be a subtle change. He says the brand registers with younger consumers from an awareness perspective, but that the message needs to be stronger. "They know that their Dad might have a bottle in the freezer, but that's not going to get them to order it."Quality ControlThe Absolut Spirits Co. is three years old. A subsidiary of The V&S Group, Stockholm, Sweden, it imports Absolut, Danzka, Plymouth Gin and Level vodka. Absolut first came to the United States through a small importer, Carillon Importers Ltd. in New York. Carillon couldn't fully support the brand so it was picked up by Seagram's, which later forged a distribution agreement with V&S. When Seagram's sold off its brands, V&S created The Absolut Spirits Co., which now is in charge of sales and marketing for its four brands and has a shared salesforce with Jim Beam Brands.The company has roughly 30 employees, with Giaconelli managing the merchandising and working directly with G2 Worldwide, New York, Absolut's agency of record.Michael Clarke, a G2 partner, says Absolut created the premium vodka category. The brand has a history with art and fashion, and it has a level of class that the merchandisers have to sustain. Absolut won't, Fisher says, do the type of P-O-P a beer marketer may do. It doesn't run St. Patrick's Day programs, and if it runs a Halloween program, don't expect to see a standee of Elvira."You'll never go to an Absolut event and have a vinyl banner behind the bar. You're never going to have that look because that's not what the brand should be portrayed as," Fisher says.Each brand under Absolut has a set of design guidelines that includes what materials fit each brand personality. Clarke says Absolut is mostly stainless steels or brushed aluminums. The Level brand, on the other hand, uses woods and chromes. "Whatever material we use, we celebrate what the material is," Clarke says. Hence, if a display calls for wood, it will have wood. There won't be any corrugated displays printed to look like wood.Giaconelli says the brand is fun to work on because the P-O-P expands past paper pieces and involves more creativity. She cites the Absolut Essentials fridge display, which includes a consumer offer to buy a mini fridge with a window panel shaped like the Absolut bottle. That goes way beyond T-shirts, she says."Ever since I've been on the brand, and I've worked on many brands when I was at Seagram's, Absolut's been one of the hardest to work on," Giaconelli says. "We were always challenged with not only giving a very witty message, because that's what the brand is about, but to create it in a way that's different. We're not about the paper case cards; we bring our products to life, and the message to life. It's always been quality from one piece to another. Even the brochures have to have a certain quality."The Process Absolut originally hired G2 to handle its on-premise displays, though after one year, G2 also began to tackle both on- and off-premise efforts. Giaconelli says Absolut does about 60% of its display work for on-premise, though off-premise controls more of the budget.The display process begins when Absolut develops a one-year merchandising calendar for each brand, which includes key selling seasons and holidays. The marketing department devises a creative strategy and then hands that to Giaconelli and the G2 team."When the strategic plan is developed, there's a brief that's given to the agency that basically tells them, 'do a program for this time, do a program for that time,'" Giaconelli says. "We may decide for the summer we need a rack, but most times we give the guys an open arena to develop [display types]. This way they don't stifle their thinking."Along with the strategic direction, G2 also uses a "Design Language" guide, which it develops for all its clients. This manual details the design elements for every brand under the Absolut Spirits group."What these guidelines define are normal things like graphics style, but it's also other things like shape and form, color and light, materials and finishes, so if there's a lit piece, for example, it may say 'for Absolut the light should be soft and diffuse,' so it's not hard light," Clarke says."They're our architectural guidelines," Giaconelli says. The manual keeps the displays consistent. In the case of Absolut, for example, there is a soft curve in the bottle shape, so everything else must be soft. The bottle shape is in every display, too. For instance, the Absolut drink stir sticks have a cutout silhouette of the top edge of the Absolut bottle shape. This is not immediately noticeable. "There's always that hidden factor. At least we try," she says.Danzka, Plymouth and Level all have Design Language rules. Plymouth carries a nautical theme, and has more of a classic feel to its displays. For Danzka, the bottle is not clear, so displays utilize a cold, aluminum look. Level is all about luxury."We did a lot of research on Level because we didn't want it to look like every other vodka product out there," Giaconelli says. "What you'll see is that Grey Goose, Ciroc, they're very similar in color tone to some of the things we have out there. They're silver and blue, and that's their brand colors, and some of their on-premise things are black, but they're still very close to where we are, so we needed to be very, very different."Thus, Level P-O-P is characterized by elegant, black, masculine, hand-crafted wood. "We did our homework when we started developing the Design Language, seeing what other companies were doing, such as in fashion, like a Gucci, a Coach," she says. "How is Mercedes shown? How is the top-of-the-line electronics brand being shown? We pulled a lot of reference materials from that."After looking at the Design Language, G2 puts together renderings, pencil sketches, prototypes, whatever is needed. "It's very collaborative. We go back and forth," Clarke says. "Carol is visionary in that she can see things even in the very early stages."Andi Spolan, partner, G2, says the budget is also taken into account at this point. "Yes, we can do this, but can we afford it?" she asks.Sometimes a prototype is made to test the practicality of a display, to make sure it can hold the product weight, or to make sure nothing is lost or damaged during shipping.For the first time ever, with the Absolut Frosted Christmas display, Giaconelli signed off on a pencil sketch and sent it to production. The complex display includes a gingerbread house on a pole topper. Rapid Displays, Chicago and Union City, Calif., produced the unit (it employed 400 artisans in China who hand-painted and decorated the molded components). Giaconelli says the holidays are especially difficult, generally taking up sketch after sketch. It's a heavily regulated product, and Absolut can't put Santa Claus on a display or appeal to children in any way, she adds.Dealing With RegulationsThe alcohol sector is heavily regulated from state to state, both in display structure and marketing message. The industry itself is under fire from consumer advocacy groups arguing that alcohol ads and displays promote underage drinking and binge drinking. The heat is similar to what the tobacco industry feels. "The reality is those changes will occur to the industry maybe five to 10 years from now," Fisher says, adding that currently there are class-action lawsuits filed in about six states. He says underage drinking, drinking in moderation, drinking and driving and binge drinking are the main issues, and that the NCAA wants to ban all alcohol advertising during televised college games.Spolan says state regulations necessitate multiple displays that satisfy the diverse needs of retailers. She says from state to state there are display limitations on price, lighted or unlighted displays, motion or non-motion displays, floor space or shelf space. Absolut Spirits' salesforce works with distributors and retailers directly and reports back to the marketing department. Once a display is produced, the salesforce, distributors or a merchandising house will set it up in-store.The company's salesforce also helps the marketers measure the effect-iveness of its displays by indicating what displays have gone up and by monitoring sales. "We also talk to our salesforce another way," Giaconelli says. "We give them a survey, and this is their chance to moan about the pieces that go up. We've learned a lot from them." The survey reminds the salesforce about the display, asks them to rate it and asks them to report what the competition is doing."Keep in mind that every idea doesn't come out of this office, or G2. We try to open it up to everybody who's out there. We have the people out in the field or in the streets who hear things, or who see things that get complaints," Giaconelli says. For example, Absolut created a backbar pedestal that held the entire Absolut flavor family. However, a lot of accounts didn't carry all the flavored brands, so they were forced to double up on certain flavors to fill all the bottle spots. Giaconelli took that information and helped design a modular pedestal that allowed one piece to snap into another, for a larger unit. An account could create a chain with one to six pedestal pieces to reflect whatever they carried.Absolut works with its vendor partners as well (see sidebar). Display design is driven by the agency, but vendors help with new technologies and engineering issues, Clarke says. Giaconelli says many times they will triple-bid a project, asking for concept sketches, to see the ways a display can be interpreted. She says vendors may have certain ideas from working on similar projects. "We don't just design and produce in a vacuum," she says.To pick the right supplier, Spolan says sometimes it's a given. "For a recipe brochure, it's as simple as we have a pool of printers that we trust are going to produce on time, within budget and to the caliber we demand," she says. "Quality drives a lot of our decisions. Sometimes we may pay slightly more, but you get what you pay for. It's not always the cheapest who gets the job."Absolut ArtAlthough technically not P-O-P in the classic sense, Absolut has for years commissioned famed artists to create art using the Absolut bottle. The program sums up the brand's attitude, defining the swanky, luxury category."That started when the brand was first introduced in the United States. Andy Warhol was the first artist that was used in a platform developed for art and fashion," Giaconelli says. "It builds our brand. It was the advertising for a long time. It was all art pieces."Warhol's painting of the Absolut bottle in 1985 was the first piece of the Absolut Art collection. Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and other artists later followed. In 1988, David Cameron, then a young fashion designer, created a silver mini-dress, titled "Absolut Cameron," that marked the beginning of the Absolut Fashion collection.In the U.S., however, where the vodka category has recently exploded, television marketing and P-O-P, not art, are the major advertising mediums. Absolut Spirits plans to roll the TV ads into its integrated marketing strategy. The company just produced its first commercial for Absolut Raspberri, its latest flavor introduction. Up until roughly seven or eight years ago, alcohol companies weren't allowed to do TV commercials except on cable and at certain times at night. "How do we convey the strongest message possible through the disciplines we have available to us? That is something we're just getting a foot with," Fisher says. Giaconelli says P-O-P remains the workhorse. "It's an important part of the marketing mix -- it gives us our visibility, rewards our trade, gets us floor presence." Fisher agrees: "TV is a great component to have, but we have the largest shared voice in distilled spirits, period, and we've never been on TV."

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