BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : FEBRUARY 12, 2001 ISSUE
BOOKS Birth of a Brand ABSOLUT Biography of a Bottle By Carl Hamilton Texere -- 312pp -- $24.95 How did a Swedish vodka that isn't even popular in its own country become the No. 1 U.S. vodka import and one of the top 10 distilled spirits in the world? Carl Hamilton's Absolut: Biography of a Bottle tells how a few audacious ''hicks from Sweden'' built a product backwards, beginning with an ad campaign, then producing the liquor, complete with an imaginary history. Although the book suffers from awkward, often breathless writing, it's an enlightening study of how advertising and marketing can make something of nothing. Hamilton, a political commentator and columnist for the Scandinavian newspaper Aftonbladet, begins his story in 1978 with Gunnar Broman, a Swedish advertising man, schlepping a bag of prototype plastic bottles to advertising agency N.W. Ayer on Madison Avenue. Broman was representing the Swedish Liquor Monopoly, the state regulators of the industry, whose members wanted to sell liquor to Americans. Securing support from an American advertising agency was seen as the first step to getting a distributor. N.W. Ayer creative director Jerry Siano agreed to oversee the bottle design and initial sketches and copy for ads. Then, after a lengthy search for a business partner, the Swedes eventually persuaded tiny Carillon Importers to join up. At this point, the job of inventing what had been an imaginary product fell to Borje Karlsson, the Liquor Monopoly's lab chief. His formula was hatched on the fly. Meanwhile, Absolut's label would assert that it was produced according to centuries-old traditions. The liquor was also said to originate in the ancient distillery town of Ahus. ''In reality,'' Hamilton writes, ''it was all distilled at the newly built plant in Arstadal, just outside Stockholm.'' Importer Carillon's ad agency, Martin Landey, Arlow, took over, but later dropped the account due to a conflict of interest. At the time, the loss of Absolut didn't seem too painful. ''After two years of hard work,'' says Hamilton, ''the Swedish vodka was selling less than 25,000 cases, and Martin Landey had earned no more than thirty grand from Absolut vodka.'' TBWA took over, inheriting little more than a product in a bottle that seemed suited to the medicine cabinet. Creatives Graham Turner and Geoff Hayes wanted to produce something distinct from the pretentious liquor ads that then predominated. So they applied a subtle twist of humor. The first of their ads, appearing in 1980, featured the tag line ''Absolut Perfection'' and art consisting only of the peculiar bottle wearing a halo. For copy, they used the concocted history on the label. Eventually, more than 1,200 similar ads appeared. Absolut, Hamilton says, is an undistinguished liquor that few Swedes drink. But Americans bought the image and design, today purchasing more than 3 million cases a year. The book leaves much to be desired. Many characters are vaguely sketched, and several gossipy and digressive chapters should simply have been deleted. And much of the writing is annoying: ''hick'' and ''walleyed'' show up repeatedly. Still, if you can get past all of that and focus on how a savvy ad campaign conquered America, Absolut may give you a happy hour. By Julie Forster _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Birth of a Brand PHOTO: Cover, ``Absolut'' INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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