Absolut: Biography of a Bottle

By Carl Hamilton

Book Overview

While conducting research in business ethics, Carl Hamilton discovered that the official history of Absolut's advertising success was somewhat less than 100 percent pure. The ideas behind the campaign... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1587990024
• ISBN13: 9781587990021
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Texere
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

My Rating : LOVE IT, PICK IT UP QUICK!!!

My Brother in law , Rajeev, gave me this book . I was curious when I saw the cover page and name of book and started out. Cary Hamilton has written a hilarious , fascinating and thorough description of how Absolut was established. It starts our right from the conception stage of the bottle , when Gunnar Broman , the wacky Sweden ad agency head, heads with his team to Madison Square and tries to sell the concept of a Swedish Vodka. The book captures the various difficulties he encounters while trying to sell this concept to the agencies in the US. The shape of the bottle is something that was hotly discussed , laughed at and equaled to that of a medicine bottle.....This whole bit is beautiful. Its interesting to also learn of how Lars Lindmark, the man behind the initiative manages around the National Liquor Monopoly of Sweden . ( Btw : Do you know that Sweden had a history of keeping liquor sales under control). The beauty and the main emphasis is on the various platforms Broman creates, how they position it and how it was established. Even funnier are the initial bit of selling the bottles ( initially they were just trying to get the concept sold, now the real stuff). The book goes on to talk about TBWA and N W Ayer and how Gunnar Broman gets sidelined in the fight for advterising for absolute. I could go on and on about this book, but the beauty of this book would really be appreciated if you can look at how many twist and turns there was in this story, how they were able to come out of it successfully , innovative advertising and top of it deal with the bureaucracy of the Liquor monopoly. And yeah remember, this is post Smirn off !!!!!! Once you read this book, you would be dying to grab a bottle of absolute and admire the beauty of it .........Read on ....there's a lot I haven't told you about J Btw, I read this book in 2 days and trust me am not the type who reads for long hours http://www.bloglines.com/blog/PrashantP

The Form of Pure Image!

In Absolut: Biography of a Bottle, Mr. Hamilton has written a thorough, fascinating account of how one of the most popular brands in the United States was established in the last 22 years. This book is a must read for anyone who has enjoyed the famous Absolut advertising campaign featuring the bottle shape, and those who want to understand more about the process of successful brand building.I was an executive at Heublein, makers of market-leading Smirnoff Vodka, from 1974-1977, and found this story fascinating for how overwhelming odds against success were overcome. In this review, I will add some perspective that the author omitted.Liquor is one of the most difficult areas in which to create a new consumer brand. The hurdles are many. You cannot advertise on television or radio. Most people are not very experimental in the liquor they will try. You cannot go door-to-door dropping off samples like soap powder. Distribution is very expensive and hard to acquire. Establishing profitability with a new brand can take many years, and there are many failures. As a result, the market leader in most categories in 1950 is still the market leading brand today. For imported spirits, the country viewed as the most "legitimate" historical source always dominated the imported category. For vodka, what country do you think of? Certainly, Sweden was probably not first in your mind in 1978. Absolut was brilliantly developed, but Absolut was also lucky. As the Cold War continued and the Afghanistan War began, Americans had reason to question their ties to Stolychnaya, which had been the leading vodka import. President Reagan's characterization of the U.S.S.R. as an "evil empire" certainly aided that perceptual shift. Absolut had been established by that time on a brand platform of being different, a classy version of the Marlboro cowboy. The style of the product, the package, and the advertising all "whispered" to you about being subtly different while all the other vodkas shouted in vibrant colors with gaudy labels in similar bottles.Interestingly, Heublein used a very similar approach to that employed by Absolut with packaging and positioning to build its mustard, Grey Poupon, into the market leader at the same time that the company was ignoring Absolut. The story of Grey Poupon is developed in part in The 2,000 Percent Solution.What is even more remarkable is that Absolut was developed to be an export brand without a base in Sweden by the national Liquor Monopoly there, which had a strong heritage of keeping drinking under control. At many key points in the brand's development, the Swedes took large financial risks with little prospect of success. Who says that government agencies cannot be entrepreneurial? You will enjoy reading about Lars Lindmark who spear-headed this initiative as head of the Monopoly. But the heart and beauty of this story is how the brand platform, positioning, and the rest were established. The results were astonishingly good, but the pr

Nonfiction that reads like a novel

Having spent a lifetime in advertising and marketing and having once been charged with creating a "campaign of the decade" by my client, I had to read this book. After all, the Absolut campaign is not just a campaign of the decade, it is THE campaign of several decades.It was facinating to learn, not only how the campaign came to be, but that the advertising campaign was invented before a single drop of the product was conceived or produced. I found the book hard to put down. It reveal the mysteries of one of the most facinating "start-ups" of the past few decades, and it exposed some of the best and the worst of advertising and the creative process.If you've ever worked at an advertising agency or with one, or if you just like Vodka -- read this book!

Absolut Endorsement

The story of the Absolut advertising campaign has been well-documented but the story behind the creation of the product that led to the campaign hasn't been told...until now.Within advertising and marketing circles, the Absolut ad campaign is to the 80's and 90's what the VW Beetle campaign was to the 60's...everyone working in advertising at the time claims credit. With the discipline and integrity of a good journalist, Carl Hamilton digs up the facts and presents them in a highly compelling way.Buy it for anyone in advertising, anyone in marketing, anyone who's ever taken credit for a stolen idea, or anyone who's planning a trip to Sweden!

Absolut Creativity!

Mr. Hamilton has written a thorough, fascinating account of how one of the most popular brands in the United States was established in the last 22 years. This book is a must read for anyone who has enjoyed the famous Absolut advertising campaign featuring the bottle shape, and those who want to understand more about the process of successful brand building.I was an executive at Heublein, makers of market-leading Smirnoff Vodka, from 1974-1977, and found this story fascinating for how overwhelming odds against success were overcome. In this review, I will add some perspective that the author omitted.Liquor is one of the most difficult areas in which to create a new consumer brand. The hurdles are many. You cannot advertise on television or radio. Most people are not very experimental in the liquor they will try. You cannot go door-to-door dropping off samples like soap powder. Distribution is very expensive and hard to acquire. Establishing profitability with a new brand can take many years, and there are many failures. As a result, the market leader in most categories in 1950 is still the market leading brand today. For imported spirits, the country viewed as the most "legitimate" historical source always dominated the imported category. For vodka, what country do you think of? Certainly, Sweden was probably not first in your mind in 1978. Absolut was brilliantly developed, but Absolut was also lucky. As the Cold War continued and the Afghanistan War began, Americans had reason to question their ties to Stolychnaya, which had been the leading vodka import. President Reagan's characterization of the U.S.S.R. as an "evil empire" certainly aided that perceptual shift. Absolut had been established by that time on a brand platform of being different, a classy version of the Marlboro cowboy. The style of the product, the package, and the advertising all "whispered" to you about being subtly different while all the other vodkas shouted in vibrant colors with gaudy labels in similar bottles.Interestingly, Heublein used a very similar approach to that employed by Absolut with packaging and positioning to build its mustard, Grey Poupon, into the market leader at the same time that the company was ignoring Absolut. The story of Grey Poupon is developed in part in The 2,000 Percent Solution.What is even more remarkable is that Absolut was developed to be an export brand without a base in Sweden by the national Liquor Monopoly there, which had a strong heritage of keeping drinking under control. At many key points in the brand's development, the Swedes took large financial risks with little prospect of success. Who says that government agencies cannot be entrepreneurial? You will enjoy reading about Lars Lindmark who spear-headed this initiative as head of the Monopoly. But the heart and beauty of this story is how the brand platform, positioning, and the rest were established. The results were astonishingly good, but the process was ine