The Best Ad Campaign of All Time
Q: What’s the best Ad campaign of all time?
A: The “Absolut Vodka” campaign
Here’s my rationale…
1) Exponential Sales Growth: Before the campaign launched, they were selling 10,000 cases/year and by the early 2000s they were selling 5,000,000 cases/year.
2) Brilliantly Simple: Richard Lewis, who ran the business from ’87 to ’03, described the format as “a bottle, two words and a little bit of wit.” Such insane levels of simplicity are rarely ever achieved in advertising because there’s always something else you could say about the benefits of a product or service (and most brands love to cram all of those things into every single ad). The Absolut team showed amazing restraint with the format, but were also somehow able to deliver something that was heavily branded, product-centric and instantly recognizable.
3) Amazing Craft: Every single one of the ads were meticulously crafted and you couldn’t help but spend time looking at the amazing detail of each execution. When was the last time you spent more than 3 seconds looking at a print ad?
4) Longevity: The true test of an amazing idea is how long it can last (and still be fresh each time). The campaign had over 1500 executions and an amazing 25-year run. If a campaign makes it through 2 rounds of Millward Brown research these days, it’s a big win.
5) Cultural Cache: This campaign was a cultural phenomenon — from Warhol designed bottles to newsstands removing the ads and selling them separately, few campaigns have ever reached such cultural impact. The creative inspired a sense of anticipation for consumers — you always wondered, “what are they going to do next.” On a personal note, I used to cut the Absolut ads out of Country Inns magazine when I was a kid and hang them up in my room (my mom probably thought I would end up an alcoholic).
I was sad when they eventually walked away from the campaign because I always thought they had all the ingredients to make amazing ads for the Facebook/Insta and Twitter era. In the end, brands like Oreo ended up taking a page out of their book and reigned supreme on Social with very similar style campaigns.
Thanks for reading. Sound off in the comments with your favorite campaign of all time.
***P.S. There’s an amazing coffee table book that has every ad from the campaign. Definitely worth checking out (or you can just start collecting old Country Inns magazines). https://www.amazon.com/Absolut-Book-Vodka-Advertising-Story/dp/1885203292
