Jan
21
A New Take on Truth in Advertising?
Filed Under Uncategorized | By Morgan J Curtis | Leave a Comment
A few weeks ago, I was walking around south Austin with a friend when, in the middle of a conversation, she said, “Sex may sell, but it has nothing to do with making great vodka.†I nodded and tried to excuse her exceedingly random comment by remembering that we had both had a high stress week. A few minutes later, I looked up and realized that she hadn’t just made a random comment but, rather, was reading the billboard that was looming over our heads.
What is most surprising is that this wasn’t the billboard for a nonprofit organization trying to make a point about alcohol advertising equating alcohol with assured sexual conquest. This was a billboard for Sobieski Vodka. It was one of those rare, scrape-my-jaw-off-the-pavement kind of moments. Let me be clear, this isn’t the only alcohol billboard that doesn’t use sex to sell – there’s a very simple Patron tequila billboard a few miles north that doesn’t use sex to sell its product, but it doesn’t really make a statement either.
A bit about Sobieski’s marketing strategy is shown in the following excerpt from a press release on their website:
In summer 2007, Sobieski Vodka launched its “Truth in Vodka” campaign, declaring that consumers don’t have to pay a king’s ransom to get superb vodka. Their back-to-basics approach to marketing, which focuses on what goes in the bottle—tradition, heritage, authenticity and taste—is in marked contrast to competitors who rely on lavish packaging and gimmicky ad campaigns that have resulted in a deluge of overpriced vodkas.
Their motivation may be to encourage people to focus on the product rather than the packaging or advertising (which is frankly a noble goal in itself) but something about the way they chose to make their statement suggests to me that they are saying so much more. A note to other manufactures of alcoholic beverages – this is good advertising! It’s not necessary to use women’s naked bodies to market your product.
Just for the sake of comparison, here is a Budweiser billboard that we often use in training. I dare say the message inherent in this ad is obviously quite different than the one above. Which product would you rather buy?
