"One Absolut In a Relative World"



A nice article in Business World that talks about how the sales of Absolut Vodka might increase in the Indian Market once the import duties ( which are about 400% now) are reduced.

A few interesting points:
- Currently, Absolut cannot compete with Smirnoff in India. That is because Absolut is made only at one place in the world at Ahus in Sweden, whereas Smirnoff is made locally in most major markets. There are import duties of about 400% on Absolut which is much higher than the duties for Smirnoff.

-Absolut needs to succeed in emerging markets such as India and China, as its sales growth in the US, which consumed half the 90 million litres exported from Sweden in 2006, has tapered down to mere 2 per cent. Rivals such as newer foreign vodka brands Grey Goose and Ketel One have taken over the novel and exclusive spirits category and are growing sales in double digits, the way Absolut did in the 1980s and the 1990s.

-"Absolut is the aspirational brand of the new generation of Indian professional"

-Absolut advertising has been among the top attention grabbers and has developed a cult following: Absolut print ads and merchandise are traded as collectors’ items. The magazine Advertising Age ranked Absolut’s 25-year running campaign featuring the Absolut bottle as the hero as the seventh greatest advertising campaign of the 20th century.

-Celebrities such as painter Andy Warhol, writer Salman Rushdie, musician Miles Davis, and designer Gianni Versace endorsed it. Absolut was the new thing in town and associating with a cerebral crowd gave it the aura of intelligent cool.The most engaging feature of the old Absolut ads, however, was merging the bottle with the landscape or object, which sometimes teased the viewers to search the form of the bottle in the picture. This enhanced viewers’ involvement with the ad.