Advertising: Absolut-ly Successful Magazine Ads

If you’re a publisher looking for a solid print champion, Absolute Vodka is worth toasting according to "Latest from Min' newsletter. Even as its competitors began to shift to television advertising, Absolut stuck to its print platforms through 25 years before making its television advertising debut earlier this year. Tim Murphy, Absolut’s brand director, says he prefers magazine brands when he needs a direct, effective ad vehicle to reach his target audience, “Once we figure out who are target is—and we know in quite quiet a bit of detail who they are—magazines afford us the opportunity to pinpoint those people and reach out to them.”
Murphy’s Message to Magazine Publishers
“Publish a magazine that’s popular and appealing to the interests of our consumer. We’re not interested in value-added opportunities or inserts unless the magazine is right for our target. The best thing magazine publishers can do is listen to us. There’s a tremendous amount of consolidation in the beverage alcohol industry, so any one supplier might not have a direct match between brand X and magazine Y.”

Example of Absolute’s Personalized Messages aimed at Specific Magazine Audiences:


Absolut Centerfold for Playboy : Absolut created an Absolut Centerfold with a bottle without any text on it but with an accompanying “playmate data sheet” complete with things like “the perfect night: at home with my closest friends, Sven, Björn, Ingmar, while jumping back and forth between the sauna and ice baths….”

Absolut Image and Absolut Exposure for the Annual issue of Canadian Geographic: Absolut Image is an overlapping montage of photos showing parts of some Absolut Vodka bottles. The center “photograph” with the Absolut shape cut-out shows the image of an endangered Rocky Mountain Grey Wolf.

Absolut Fan: This ad is classic magazine ad but almost 2/3 of the ad torn off. It looks like some Absolut fan tried to tear this ad off the magazine.

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“Librarians have to guard their magazines from being de-Absoluted"

Richard W. Lewis, author of Absolut Book: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story