Absolut Advertising

Absolut Vodka had an advertising campaign some years ago that I consider extremely clever and very successful. The vodka company took advantage of the similarity between the English word 'absolute' and the Swedish word for the eponymous vodka, 'absolut.' The campaign consisted on several advertisements which had an image that had the shape of the Absolut Vodka bottle somewhere in it, and below it a statement that started with the word 'absolut.'

I think that the cleverness behind this advertising campaign is very much due to luck. The brand is lucky that the word absolut is spelled almost the same, that the word has such a big possibility of combination with other words, and that the bottle has such a distinctive shape. The word absolut gives the advertising campaign quite an enormous array of possibilities. In the example above, they use the phrase "Absolut Berlin" below a piece of the Berlin Wall shaped like an absolute bottle. The advertisement gives the vodka a relation to freedom, almost saying "drink our vodka and you'll demolish the barriers that you carry."

The brand realized the potential in their hands and exploited it completely. You can find advertisements that range in appeal from emotions to seasons, countries, cities, people, minority groups, almost anything really. Often, the company also teamed up with artists to design special edition bottles and then an accompanying campaign, like below. I believe that the range of appeal that the campaign has is extremely effective. It can make almost anyone believe that, by drinking absolute vodka, you can achieve almost anything.