How to Advertise Successfully

Question: How do you get blood from a stone? Answer: Get a really good advertising agency. Now in its 22nd year, the ubiquitous two-word ad campaign for Absolut vodka has proven so durable that it may never end.

In 1979, management of Swedish Wine and Spirits Corporation, the former state-run liquor monopoly of Sweden, came to the United States desperate to crack the vodka market but without a clue how to do it. A year later they had one of the most famous advertising slogans in the world and a redesigned bottle that, if hung upside down, would look right at home in a hospital. The original creative agency, N. W. Ayer, came up with the famous slogan. They knew immediately they had an inexhaustible supply of ad ideas. According to Absolut Book by Richard W. Lewis, the man who thought it up, Jerry Siano, exclaimed to the Swedes "Absolutely anything!"

TBWA Advertising replaced Ayer before the campaign got started, and was responsible for both the original spotlighted bottle ads and the later series of not-so-subliminal Absolut bottle images in familiar places. Advertising Age magazine recently ranked TBWA's Absolut campaign the seventh-greatest advertising campaign of the 20th century. As the editors noted, "It was a neat trick for a product that is by law and by its very nature a flavorless commodity."

While critically acclaimed, some would argue the campaign ceased being clever and started being absolut-ly monotonous about 20 years ago. Still, there is no denying the result. Absolut went from a nothing brand, selling 10,000 cases in 1979 to the third-largest premium spirit in the world, selling 7.3 million cases by 2000.

Now, after over 800-odd ads, we still await the ABSOLUT END.