“Svedka Grl,” the computer-animated star of a vodka advertising campaign, looks like a dominatrix from a science-fiction flick and spouts racy comments that can’t always be quoted in a family newspaper — they have even gotten her in trouble with the liquor industry
The edgy approach has helped make Svedka one of the fastest-growing premium spirits in the past few years.
Higher-end liquor, particularly vodka, is the sweet spot of the booze business, and Svedka is a key element in Chicago-based Barton Brands’ effort to bolster its presence.
Barton has been known more for “value” brands such as Skol and Fleischmann’s — bottles more likely found in Joe Sixpack’s liquor cabinet than in Joe Hip-hop’s. Last year, Barton’s parent company, Constellation Brands, shelled out $384 million for Svedka, an upstart Swedish vodka that comes in a bottle reminiscent of Absolut, the Swedish titan of imported vodkas.
Under Barton’s wing, Svedka’s torrid growth has continued. So has its risque marketing campaign: After all, ads are crucial to selling vodka.
But Barton must walk a fine line. The liquor industry, through its trade group, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, has a self-policing system for advertising, and Svedka has often run afoul of it. Complaints about Svedka ads, including about Svedka Grl’s sometimes racy image, continued last year under Barton’s ownership.
Barton, unlike Svedka’s previous owner, has addressed those complaints. But it hasn’t repositioned the brand or dumped Svedka Grl. She usually comes accompanied by cheeky lines such as: “Svedka Salutes L.A. — Home of the First Drive-Through Plastic Surgery Window.”
The idea is to impart a sense of playfulness to the Svedka brand, said Marty Birkel, president of Barton Brands.
“The brand essence is kind of putting the fun back into the vodka category,” he said.
Upstate New York-based Constellation is best known as the world’s biggest winemaker, counting Robert Mondavi among its many brands. But Barton is a middle-of-the-pack player in distilled spirits, with Black Velvet whiskey its biggest product.
Black Velvet is a value brand, and while Barton’s value-market revenues have been growing, that isn’t the case for the industry as whole. Last year, sales of value spirits fell $106 million, according to the spirits council.
Healthy increases
However, sales of premium and superpremium brands posted healthy sales increases. The spirits trade group expects growth to taper a bit this year due to a weakening economy. But the trend favoring premium brands is expected to continue.
Barton has trailed competitors in the more lucrative premium market, some industry observers say, though it has made a push in the area over the last few years.
One of its first big efforts was Effen, a superpremium vodka made in the Netherlands. Effen, which costs about $30 a bottle, has been a success but still has a meager share of the imported vodka market. So Barton looked to Svedka, which costs $13 to $15 a bottle, to further build its premium vodka business. Low-end vodkas can cost $7 or $8 a bottle.
Svedka has posted “amazing growth,” said David Fleming, executive editor of Impact, a liquor industry publication. Its share of the imported vodka market rose from 2.7 percent in 2003 to 6 percent by 2006, according to Impact. Under Barton, that share grew even more last year, hitting about 9 percent.
Vodka success story
Absolut, often $18 to $20 a bottle, is the leading imported vodka with over 30 percent share. It’s the original imported spirits success story, and the Swedish government aims to capitalize on the state-owned brand’s fame by auctioning it off. Deerfield-based Fortune Brands is expected to bid, though Fortune executives declined to comment on the matter.
“Svedka has the Swedish imagery of Absolut, but it’s more affordable,” Fleming said. That’s one factor in Svedka’s success. Another is that Svedka’s marketing efforts have been “very effective,” he said.
With premium spirits, image is vital.
“The quality of a brand is important, but consumer perception of that brand is even more important,” said Ann Gilpin, an analyst at Morningstar Inc.
This effect has been particularly pronounced in vodka, which is clear, odorless and neutral tasting. And the cost of creating a new vodka is considerably less than it is for other spirits because vodka need not be aged like whiskey, said John Greening, a former ad executive who is now a professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
As vodka fueled the U.S. cocktail boom, dozens of new brands sprang up. In order to get more than “45 seconds of fame” in such a crowded market, Greening said, a vodkamaker must find a way to stand out.
Svedka’s former owner, Spirits Marque One, picked sex as a key way to stand out. It hailed the vodka as “the future of adult entertainment” and built a reputation for racy promotional material, some verging on the sexually explicit.
The liquor industry was not amused. Three times between 2004 and 2006, industry members lodged complaints with the Distilled Spirits Council, saying Svedka’s ads broke the industry’s rules against lewd images in ads.
Most major liquormakers, including Barton, are members of the council, which has had an advertising code since 1934, the year after Prohibition ended. “They set it up to police the industry so the government doesn’t decide to police it,” Greening said. “The alcohol business particularly knows what government intervention is all about.”
Most comply
The industry’s rules are voluntary. But when the council rules a complaint is valid, members of the trade group comply with that decision, said Frank Coleman, a spokesman for the council. Even non-members usually comply.
Not Spirits Marque One, Svedka’s former owner. “They courted controversy, and that worked well for them,” said Impact’s Fleming. “My guess is under Constellation they will be toning down the approach, but I don’t think they will be changing it too drastically.”
That seems to be the case. The flesh-filled ads are gone. But Barton has continued the “adult entertainment” theme, using its “fembot fatale,” Svedka Grl, as a prime ad vehicle. And the controversy hasn’t gone away: Two more complaints about Svedka were lodged with the spirits council last year.
The spirits council ruled that the text of one sexually suggestive ad did violate the industry’s code, but that Svedka Grl’s image did not. In response, Barton yanked that particular ad. The company did the same last year when an ad with the text “Did your private sex tape just go public?” also was deemed in violation.
Barton is “120 percent” in support of the liquor industry’s advertising code, said Birkel, the firm’s president.
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mhughlett@tribune.com
