Absolut Celebrates Its three decades of Advertising And Marketing to Gay Consumers
MARKETERS like to mark milestones, whether it is the 50th anniversary of the launching of \"The Prick Van Dyke Show,\" the 125th anniversary of the introduction of Coca-Cola or the 150th wedding anniversary of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Now, a brand is about to commemorate something that commonly passes unnoticed: the 30th wedding anniversary of a media placement.
Absolut, the Swedish vodka offered by Pernod Ricard, is presenting a project that honors 30 years of the brand's efforts to reach American consumers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and also transgender, a market currently called the L.G.B.T. neighborhood. The starting point came when ads for Absolut ran in 1981 in two magazines read by gay guys, The Advocate and After Dark.
Such target advertising was very unusual 3 years ago, when almost all pillar brand names shied from the marketplace for concern of pushing away the larger, traditional market. Those very first Absolut advertisements were later on adhered to with occasions in bars, contributions to charities as well as triggers, outdoor marketing and also, most just recently, sponsorship of a collection on the Logo cord network, \"RuPaul's Drag Race.\"
The presence of Logo design, a commercial network directed at L.G.B.T. customers, emphasizes just how far Madison Avenue has come considering that those first Absolut print advertisements. Among the leading online marketers that are also looking for L.G.B.T. consumers are American Airlines, Campbell Soup, General Motors, Macy's, Orbitz, PepsiCo, Procter and Wager, Unilever and also Wells Fargo.
Absolut ended up being the \"initial big brand name to devote to and also go after the market\" by being \"the initial continually existing major brand in gay media,\" said Michael Wilke, the former executive supervisor of the Commercial Closet Association who is now elderly USA specialist for Out Now Consulting.
An additional sign of the moments: Mr. Wilke was just recently interviewed by The Kansas City Celebrity about an advocate wedding celebration bands by Tivol, a neighborhood jewelry store, that included some print and also outdoor advertisements that illustrate 2 males.
The perennial Absolut anniversary project carries the motif \"Absolut Outrageous\"-- the letters \"Out\" remain in pink-- as well as includes this phrase: \"Celebrating thirty years of going out and appearing.\" The budget is approximated at more than $4 million.
There will be on the internet and outside ads, events and a presence in social networks like Facebook. A print ad will certainly appear in publications read mostly by gay males and also lesbians like The Supporter, Reaction and Out, as well as in two general-market magazines, Vanity Fair as well as Style.
The print advertisement was produced in collaboration by Pernod Ricard United States; TBWA\/Chiat\/Day in New york city, component of the TBWA Worldwide department of the Omnicom Group, which has actually been generating Absolut campaigns because 1980; SPI Advertising in New York City, which has been the Absolut firm for the L.G.B.T. market for 15 years; as well as the professional photographer David LaChapelle, whose wonderful image-- featuring wardrobes, divas, nightclub turntables, rainbows, the performance artist Amanda Lepore and also unicorns-- is the centerpiece of the ad.
\" It's the celebration of a dedicated event in between us and also the L.G.B.T. neighborhood,\" stated Maxime Kouchnir, vice head of state for the vodka portfolio at Pernod Ricard United States in New York City, \"a journey with each other.\"
\" Yes, we're an organization,\" he added, \"however at the end of the day it's our option to have spent for thirty years behind this\" market as part of being an \"unbiased brand name.\"
Absolut has taken that technique with three marketers: Pernod Ricard, Seagram as well as Carillon Importers. It was Michel Roux, the president as well as president of Carillon, who initially made a decision that Absolut should seek gay as well as lesbian customers because, he liked claiming, they were trendsetters whose brand-buying behaviors would become taken on by younger, hipper sectors of the market.
\" Absolut set bench for virtually every firm talking with the L.G.B.T. consumer,\" stated Todd Evans, president and chief executive at Rivendell Media in Mountainside, N.J., which handled media solutions for Absolut in 1981-- and still does.
Mr. Evans recalled just how Absolut not only acquired advertisement pages in magazines like The Advocate, yet additionally bought back covers at once when \"we could not get anybody\" to take such very noticeable placements.
Initially, Absolut ran its regular advertisements in the L.G.B.T. media; the 1981 placements were \"Absolut Excellence,\" with a halo hovering over the container. A lot more lately, the brand has actually funded advertisements that are customized for the market.
Instances along with \"Absolut Outrageous\" include \"Absolut Glaad,\" recognizing the Gay and also Lesbian Partnership Against Character Assassination; \"Absolut Out,\" billboards with three-dimensional wardrobes, the doors open; and also \"Absolut Dedication,\" a wedding cake topped by a set of (identical) bottles.
Since \"relevance is quite essential,\" stated Sue Anderson, global creative supervisor on the Absolut account at TBWA\/Chiat\/Day, the goal is to mix reminders about the brand's heritage, aimed at longtime consumers, with styles that appeal to \"a more youthful generation.\"
Hoj Jomehri, creative director on Absolut at the firm, claimed: \"The look as well as the feeling of the project is modern. We're approaching it as a party in a contemporary way that looks forward to even more assistance of the community.\"
According to Scott Seitz, president at SPI Marketing, Absolut has earned the commitment of the \"elder gay as well as lesbian customer,\" ages 40 as well as older, who remember the brand name's history as well as its campaigns like fund-raising for AIDS charities.
\" Yet we're not visiting that with the millennial consumer, whose attitude is what have we done the last 6 months,\" Mr. Seitz claimed.
The campaign's appearance in worlds like tv and electronic and social media sites \"offers us a system for that conversation with the more youthful consumer,\" he added, as well as \"to stay more relevant, more on that particular target.\"
