Absolut Vodka Advertising Campaign

Executive Summary

BELK Agency is comprised of four American young women who are passionate in their media and marketing studies. We have Baret Yahn, a student at Chico State in California. Emily Burkert is a student at The University of Toledo in Ohio. Lila Schoenfield studies at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California. Lastly, Kelly Barrett studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois.

BELK Agency tackles the job of maintaining Absolut’s impressive reputation while offering the world of vodka consumers a new take on Absolut’s bottle representation. Not only is Absolut known for its premium quality vodka, but also its past advertising campaigns and iconic bottle shape. Past advertising campaigns including “In An Absolut World” and “Absolut _________” that have been running for 30 + years show that using the bottle as the main feature in the advertisement intrigues and creates brand loyalty with consumers. With that in mind, BELK seeks to take a progressive twist on this bottle-centered ad campaign.

Absolut has always targeted young, successful adults. This new advertising campaign seeks to target young adults aged 18-30; specifically, the youth that still enjoys partying and drinking with friends and impressing others with their choice of alcohol. Young adults often are categorized by their occupations, interests, appearance. Through our campaign, we want to rid the youth of these labels and unite them with a common interest: drinking Absolut. Whether an individual is a business-type, artsy, or belongs to the LGBT community, Absolut is universal among young adults. The brand personality this campaign reveals is youthful, outgoing, individualistic, and inclusive of all types.

Ideally, the target market will feel a personal connection with the advertisement and ultimately buy the brand when making their alcohol choice at the liquor store. We hope consumers feel as though they can live their lives without labels. By having no label on our product its giving the impression that our brand is making everyone feel welcome. It also reflects on how iconic the Absolut bottle is; it needs no label to represent its brand.

That brings us to our creative recommendation. We’d like to present a bottle without labels. Same bottle shape but with Absolut simply etched into bottle at the bottom without its typical logo. The advertisements that go along with this labeless bottle would specifically target the intended audience. To represent the LGBT community, the ad would feature the labeless bottle with a splash of a rainbow flag in the background. To represent white-collar workers, the ad would feature the label-less bottle with a tie on.

Regarding media, connecting with the intended audience will be done using social media including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Young adults are the biggest consumers of social media; using ‘cookies’ in order to specifically target people’s interests will prove highly beneficial. We will also utilize print advertising in lifestyle magazines and on posters with the UK. Magazines will include GQ, Cosmopolitan, Glamour. Posters will be displayed in the Underground stations, on buses, and along roads that our commuter audience will frequently pass.

Marketing Environment Analysis/SWOT

Macro Factors:

Politics and Legality are two extremely important aspects of the macro environment to any alcoholic brand due to stringent health regulations of consuming alcohol. It is vital for Absolut to keep up with current politics and to stay in line with new policies and changes so that they can adapt accordingly. Political scenario also matters greatly as there can be some civil unrest in certain markets or due to inflation the sales of the product can fall.

Economically, Absolut UK sales are up 11% according to the Pernod-Ricard 2013/2014 annual report.

In order to combat negative connotations of the alcohol industry as a whole, Absolut takes a number of initiatives to create positive public opinion. Pernod-Ricard has made corporate social responsibility an important, if not vital aspect of their business. According to their UK website, there are five key priorities in their CSR: promoting moderate drinking, campaigning against drink-driving, making young people aware of the risks associated with alcohol, campaigning against drinking during pregnancy and encouraging a responsible attitude to drinking amongst employees. In 2008 they launched ‘Accept Responsibility’, a responsible-drinking campaign that challenges consumers to accept responsibility for the choices they make about drinking alcohol. The different phases of the campaign have focussed on binge drinking, underage drinking and drink-driving.

Technological advancement has been an aiding macroenvironmental force for Absolut and helps the brand transcend cultures online. The social media explosion has allowed for increasingly interactive engagement with the consumers with real time results. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, allow for direct dialogue between Absolut and their consumers. Absolut has to stay ahead of new developments that could further promote their Vodka. Their technological proficiency can help them gain younger consumers and ambassadors.

Micro Factors:

Absolut Vodka’s current customers, while mainly urbanites, are men and women ages 25-34. These people can recognize trends in and are interested in music, art, fashion, and design. Absolut consumers are hyper conscious and strive for personal and professional success.

The leader in the premium vodka category, Absolut is ranked 5th best-selling spirit brands. Absolut competes behind Smirnoff, Jonnie Walker, Bacardi, and Captain Morgan selling 11.4 million 9l cases in both 2012 and 2013 (The Drinks Business, 2014). Smirnoff sells more because it is sold at a lower cost, even though Absolut is perceived as being better quality vodka.

With every drop of Absolut Vodka consumed in the world coming from their distilleries near Åhus in southern Sweden, they have complete control over all phases of production and can personally ensure the high quality of every single bottle. This method matches their one-on-one distribution model (Pernod-Ricard, 2014) by dealing directly with their suppliers. The high ranking and quality of Absolut make buying their vodka very easy, with almost any store with a liquor license supplying it.

Strengths

• The Absolut has a worldwide brand recognition.

• Swedish brand creates foreign appeal and legitimacy

• Artistic, fashionable brand

• Excellent background in export marketing

• Distinct/unique bottle shape

• Absolut IceBar locations in Stockholm, London, and Tokyo

• Strong distribution network

• Active in new media, popular website

Weakness

• Controversial prior campaigns (Absolut World)

• Outstanding debts

Opportunities

• Unique and distinctive bottle shape

• Less restrictions or trade barriers

• Ability create cocktails with vodka

Threats

• Possibility of creation of new laws affecting the regulation of alcohol

• Competitors gaining popularity

• Rise in excise taxes

• Export/Import taxing (UK & Sweden)

Advertising Strategy/Creative Brief

Advertising Objectives

BELK Advertising has chosen to focus on three main advertising objectives to capitalize on for the Absolut campaign (Suttle, 2014). First, with the success of our campaign we hope to increase the profits and the sales of the Absolut Company by building brand awareness for the company. BELK plans to meet this objective by marketing in select magazines with similar demographics that we are trying to reach with our target audience. Next, we will advocate a trial period for the launch of our new campaign by offering incentives to some of the first consumers to increase awareness and profitability. BELK will particularly focus on marketing in relevant magazines where we will put coupons for our new product. Also, we plan to carry this out by having a representative from our campaign at select pubs in the area, offering shots to promote the launch of the new campaign. Lastly, we would like to get the customers feedback on their thoughts about our new approach to market our new idea.

Strategy Statement

BELK Advertising plans to create a campaign to specifically target the youth in today’s society by reaching out to them through social media channels and paper advertisements. Through reaching out to todays youth culture BELK will bring brand awareness to the Absolut brand as well as increase profitability for the brand.

Creative Brief

Opportunity or Problem

Absolut is one of the most well known brands in the 20th century which can be highly attributed to two factors (Theabsolutcompany.com, 2012). Absolut has been running the same campaign, the “Absolut Blank” campaign for over 30 years in which the bottle structure is the main selling point in the campaign. BELK Advertising wanted to build upon the fact that the Absolut product primarily sells itself, so we wanted to take a new twist on the current product. With our new campaign, we want to enhance our audience and intrigue our target audience by showing them the bottle they are familiar with. Our campaign is going to represent today’s youth culture and identify them as individuals, not as a group.

Result

By focusing our attention to targeting the younger segment of the current market rather than the working middle class, BELK hopes to be able to make Absolut the first choice vodka for that age group. We want our audience to know that our brand is socially progressive.

Audience

Absolut is known as a classy brand and because of the current advertising of the product is could be said that Absolut is bought to impress others and improve their image. As BELK is targeting the youth culture, we specifically categorize our target audience as successful young adults in the working middle class. A main reason we want to target young adults is because they are the main users of social media. As we will discuss later, social media will be vital to reach our consumers.

Response

Ideally, we would want our target audience to be able to distinguish our brand from our competitors because brand awareness is an important aspect to our campaign. We also want our audience to identify and connect with the advertisements and the products of the Absolut brand.

Brand Personality

As BELK Advertising we are targeting a younger demographic so we hope to make the personality of our brand fit the needs of our consumers. We are focusing on the youthfulness and individuality of our target market and with our advertisements we hope to build upon a group of sophisticated, brand oriented, and successful individuals. These traits and qualities are ones we want to incorporate in our campaign and they will directly reflect on the Absolut brand as a whole.

Media or Budget

Regarding media, we will connect with our audience using social media. Specifically throughout our campaign we will focus on the social platforms of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Our print advertisements will be published on billboards and posters around the UK and within magazines targeting young adults.

Creative Recommendations

As the Absolut bottle is essential in the brand’s success, we do not want to alter the bottle but instead strip the bottle of its label. Not only will a labeless bottle prove that Absolut’s bottle shape is iconic, but it will relate to our suggests advertising campaign, “We don’t need a label to define ourselves, neither do you”. In our print advertisements, we plan to combine the labeless bottle with archetypal imagery relating to different youth groups, as to allude to conformity but letting the audience come to the conclusion. By rejecting stereotypes, we believe consumers will appreciate the progressive effort to include all members within the young adult population.

A labeless bottle begs the question of whether a bottle sans label is legal to sell in stores. We have concluded that it is legal as long as the brand name, ingredients, net quantity, and date of minimum durability are etched into the back of the bottle while the front of the bottle remains clear to go along with the proposed advertisement.

Media Strategy/Media Brief

Media Strategy

BELK Advertising plans to use the iconic Absolut Vodka bottle to create advertisements featuring Absolut’s labeless bottle to support our target audience through current technology trends. The target audience includes young, aged 18-30 year olds, both men and women, who are professional driven individuals. Digital and print ads will be placed where this specific market will see them most, including social media, popular magazines and on public transportation across the UK.

Media Brief

Objectives

The objective of this campaign is to reinforce Absolut Vodka’s position as one of the top vodka brands in the United Kingdom. BELK will do this by using Absolut Vodka’s labelless bottle to connect with today’s youth culture; these advertisements will be featured on social media and on posters throughout the United Kingdom.

Target Audience

The specific audience BELK will be marketing toward is young, career driven people. Specifically though who fall in the 18-30 age category who are attending university or who have already graduated and are working full time.

Message

BELK will place advertisements on social media and on posters throughout the United Kingdom in order to gain attention of Absolut Vodka’s target audience. These advertisements will feature Absolut’s labelless bottle in order to relate with today’s youth and the idea of equality and a label-free lifestyle.

Timing

This Absolut Vodka campaign will run for ones years time. For that entire year advertisements will be placed on social media through the use of cookies. During the warmer months of summer, spring and a little bit of autumn print advertisements will be placed outdoors on posters on the sides of roads and busses. During winter and summer print advertisements for Absolut Vodka will be placed in magazines such as Cosmopolitan and GQ. BELK hopes that we can reach our maximum coverage by placing the advertisements everywhere the specific market goes daily. By doing this BELK hopes the target audience will see Absolut Vodka advertisements daily so when it comes time to relax on the weekend Absolut is the first brand that comes to mind.

Budget

BELK has a total of 50 million pound sterling to spend on media for the Absolut Vodka campaign. 35 million pounds will be spent on print advertisements that will be placed in magazines, on posters and in newspapers throughout the United Kingdom. The other 15 million pounds will be spent on digital advertisements on social media.

Media Channel Recommendations

This advertisement campaign will focus on two types of advertising, social media and print ads in both magazines and on posters. BELK Advertising has chosen to use social media as an advertising platform because 78% of youth in the United Kingdom visit social media sites “often” (Maunder-Allen, 2013).

Through the use of cookies, Absolut Vodka will know who is looking at related pages, such as other alcohol brands or club websites, and can place ads on those people’s Facebook news feed, Twitter timelines and Instagram feeds. BELK feels that advertising via this platform will give Absolut the best opportunities of reaching the target audience of 18-30 year old, young students and professionals. BELK will also run Absolut as print advertisements in lifestyle magazines for both men and women.

Advertisements will run in the UK editions of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated and GQ. These ads will be featured in both the print and electronic editions of these magazines. With the increasing use of tablets, digital magazine sales are rapidly growing; some magazines have even seen as as high as 47% increase in digital sales in the past year (Ried, 2014). We believe by including Absolut advertisements in the digital editions will help reach our target market audience because many 18-30 year olds commute to university or work daily, many of them sitting on their tablets the entire journey.

Finally, BELK has chosen to run Absolut Vodka advertisements on posters across metropolitan and suburban areas throughout the United Kingdom. Posters will be placed on buses and Underground stations throughout all of London. The same posters will also be places on public transportation in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Bristol and Belfast. These same posters will be seen on posters on the side of the roads and expressways in the same metropolitan areas listed previously. BELK believes Absolut will have the post success by placing advertisements in large metropolitan areas because that is where the youth lives, studies and works. By placing the posters in these areas, mainly on public transportation, the correct audience will be seeing these advertisements on their daily commutes.

Budget

BELK has a 50 million pound budget for the advertising department. Below is how the agency will be dividing the budget to cover both the printed advertisements and digital advertisements. We have allocated £35 million to the printed advertisements which entail; magazines holding £9 million budget and 18 percent of the total budget, posters for the tube holding an £11 million budget and 22 percent of the total budget, and newspapers holding £15 million budget and 30 percent of the total. For the digital aspect of the budget we have allocated £15 million which is divided amongst budgets for Facebook at £3 million and 6 percent, Instagram for £6 million and 12 percent, Tumblr for £2 million and 4 percent, and Twitter for £4 million and 8 percent.

Timetables

As an agency we have segmented our involvement through advertising to reach our audience. In each lapse of time there will be a constant focus on the production of advertising through social media platforms because as a culture we are constantly connected. We have also included the platforms of outdoor advertising as well as advertising in magazines to make sure we are constantly producing new advertisements and staying relevant. For outdoor advertising we will brainstorm in January possible adverts to push into the market for the year ahead and then consistently release new adverts seasonally to the market. As for our magazine adverts, we will focus mainly on launching a new advertisement for the summer months and then again also during the early and late months of the year. The following table illustrates our plan to carry out the necessary advertisements as we have stated above.

How plan will be assessed and evaluated

While we expect the campaign to be successful, there are certain ways of measuring how successful it will be. Focus groups will be ideal in assuring our consumers understand and relate to our advertising campaign. They also must be able to recognize the bottle as Absolut, even without the label. Focus groups will include random people within the age group of 18-30 who are employed or are students.

Measuring the sales results by comparing expected sales results with actual sales results will truly show the effectiveness of the campaign. Appropriate testing must be down, however, to avoid confusion between correlation and causality. For example, if there was a price increase at the same time as the release of the new bottle and advertising campaign, it would be inappropriate to show causality.

References

Maunder-Allan, S. (2013). Understanding youth attitudes to social media. Marketing Magazine. [online] Available at: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1210142/understanding-youth-attitudes-social-media [Accessed 4 Dec. 2014].

Pernod-Ricard (2014). Annual Report 2013/2014: Transmission. [online] Available at: http://pernod-ricard.com/2013-14annualreport/Pernod-Ricard_AR-13-14.pdf [Accessed 11 Dec. 2014]

Reid, A. (2014). How digital weighs up against print for UK magazine circulations. [online] Journalism.co.uk. Available at: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/how-digital-weighs-up-against-print-for-uk-magazine-circulations/s2/a555858/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2014].

Shaw, L. (2014). Top 10 Spirits Brands. [online] The Drinking Business. Available at: http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2014/08/top-10-spirits-brands-2/7/ [Accessed 12 Dec. 2014]

Suttle, R. (2014). Goals & Objectives in Advertising. [online] Small Business - Chron.com. Available at: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/goals-objectives-advertising-25273.html [Accessed 10 Dec. 2014].

Theabsolutcompany.com, (2012). The Phenomenon - The Absolut Company. [online] Available at: http://www.theabsolutcompany.com/the-phenomenon/ [Accessed 21 Nov. 2014].