Absolut Semiotics.

Today I would like to take a look at the long-term Absolut ad campaign in terms of semiotics.

Most of us have seen these ads somewhere or another, mostly in magazines and occasionally on television. I think we can agree that these ads take pretty much the same shape consistently: You see a clear (sometimes integrated into its relative surroundings) image of the bottle, with a simple, bold caption, usually at the bottom of the ad reading "ABSOLUT _______." I invite you to look at the link to a gallery of Absolut Ads below to get a sense of the campaign's versatility.

http://www.absolutad.com/absolut_gallery/singles/

But with all these ads, seemingly targeting different nationalities, lifestyles, emotions, etc... What are these ads trying to tell us. A brief intro to the history of the Absolut ads tells us this:

Adman Geoff Hays of the TBWA ad agency in New York was asked to come up with a campaign for Absolut Vodka. The Stockholm team had taken great care to outline a campaign for the new product based on very specific guidelines - all advertising should center around the bottle, the product should not be identified with any particular lifestyle and the approach should have a timeless yet contemporary feel to it. 

Thousands of miles away, Hayes took these ideas one step further. The story goes that the idea for "Absolut Perfection" and the Absolut Vodka campaign came to him nee the bath. At that moment, in a New York bathtub, 400 years of Swedish tradition became a modern phenomenon.

There is the beginning of our answer. The point of these ads is to NOT target a specific lifestyle or culture, but to suggest that Absolut can be apart of anyones life and any country's culture. It can be everyone's vodka. Even the fact the Hayes came up with the ad idea in the bathtub manifests this very purpose.

But lets take a look even further, at the object in focus here: the bottle. The bottle has been a very important player in Absolut's essence and success. The bottle design was inspired from an old Swedish medicine bottle found in an antique shop, and appears as such. Think: a bottle that appears to cure all ailments. Upon further contemplating the bottle design, it was decided that it should have no label (usually it is clear, with the brand name in blue, with black script), so you could see the contents of the bottle. This goes along with the company's original slogan for the vodka, "Absolute pure." For various marketing and legal reasons, they modified it to be "Absolut." But thanks to their bottle, and various advertisements that imply it's purity, we still associate Absolut with pureness.

Overall, the Absolut ads collectively do not give off any particular ambience, appealing to any certain demographic. The ads purposely, though maybe they are less effective individually, attract all audiences from all regions and all walks of life. Absolut has manage to convey its origins as well as create the idea that it is the vodka for anyone, any time and any place.