How Absolut and TABASCO’s Bottled Explosive Flavour
One of Absolut Vodka’s most iconic serves is the Bloody Mary. And what does every great Bloody Mary call for? A healthy dash of TABASCO sauce. Now, for the first time, the two are united in a spicy collaboration that feels like an instant classic. The resulting product takes the defining features of Absolut and TABASCO to form a celebration and an homage to what’s most loved about them both. Smooth winter-wheat vodka meets fermented, aged red pepper mash in a bottle that’s the unmistakable lovechild of the two brands. “When you see it the first time, it sells itself a little bit,” quips Absolut’s Filip Kiisk, global director of brand communications, content and partnerships. The two teams worked closely together from the very beginning, without silos, to make a product both stand proudly behind today.
The supporting campaign, a debut from the brand’s agency of record Wieden + Kennedy London shot by ProdCo’s Leigh Powis, cut no corners. It was filmed on location in the volcanic fields south of Reykjavík, Iceland, features a model volcano, and is soundtracked by Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On the Wild Side’ while the OOH nods at Absolut’s iconic print ads from the ‘80s and ‘90s.
Spice is trending news with 85% of gen z reporting they enjoy spicy food, according to Filip. “If you think about it, that's huge, so there's opportunity there and then looking into our category – spicy vodka – there are not many players there,” Filip explains, citing that the spicy vodka category is going to grow around 27% in the coming four years. Alongside insights and data from the consumer research team, the bartenders Absolut works with globally likewise attested to the popularity of spicy drinks, especially spicy Bloody Marys, giving Absolut the confidence that this collaboration would make an effective impact. Tying it altogether, however, is the more esoteric “gut feeling” which Filip says is needed to create “work and collaborations that also hit in people's hearts.”
In a world of hard data, ‘gut feeling’ doesn’t get a lot of airtime and Filip concurs, “People don't talk about it anymore because it's hard to measure and it's subjective.” For big companies, “gut feeling is always tricky to talk about but I think you can't always put numbers to it, you need to trust your people,” he states. From an outside perspective, the melding of Absolut and TABASCO feels right. “When you see it you fall in love with it. It's easy, it's simple, it’s clever, it’s imaginative and it gives you that smile in your mind.”
The collaboration is supported by a global campaign which launched last week consisting of a TVC and OOH taking inspiration from some of Absolut’s most iconic silhouette print ads from the ‘80s and '90s and reimagining them for audiences today. Ana Balarin, Wieden+Kennedy London’s CCO, says the brief’s first slide “simply stated, in big blue letters of course: ‘It’s time to bring Absolut back’. From that moment onwards, all the conversations we had with the clients focused on restoring Absolut’s status as a cultural icon.”
Ana acknowledges how much the culture has shifted from “the time when the Absolut clever silhouette press ads were everywhere and universally loved” but it only made the team more determined. “One thing we knew is that we had to keep the work simple, authentic and timeless, and resist being swept up by fleeting trends, while making it relevant to today’s cultural context.”
Filip notes how “Absolut's never left the silhouette; the silhouette has been part of the Absolute brand world for four decades” in reference to the utilisation of the bottle’s shape in some of the past’s most recognisable ads. It’s part of the brand’s DNA so in Filip’s view this campaign “doesn't feel like we’re going back. It just feels like we are evolving.”
“In the early '90s, people loved Absolut's work so much, they'd hang it on their walls,” say Wieden+Kennedy London’s creative directors Freddy Taylor and Phillippa Beaumont. “It was confident and witty, and it never spelled out the answer. By presenting a puzzle and letting the audience make the leap themselves, it did something most advertising didn’t, it created a smile in the mind.”
Freddy and Phillippa knew that attention is a scarce resource today so to make the most impact they decided on a few bold moves inspired by Absolut’s cultural legacy and “returning the brand to simple, witty, smile-in-mind kind of work that puts one of the most iconic product silhouettes at the centre.
“Whether that's creating a mouthwatering, spicy volcano, a piece of packaging every bartender wants, or a single image that people save, pin, screenshot, and hopefully one day soon, hang on their wall.”
Above: BTS of Leigh and the model volcano
The spot at the heart of the campaign is quite literally explosive though instead of lava, a spicy Bloody Mary erupts. Filming on location was vital to establish an authentic feeling of place while a large-scale model volcano was created by Leigh for the spot’s Bloody Mary eruptions. “For us it was essential that the rock you see the volcanologists walk amongst was once molten and the craters we could light up orange were formed by lava,” say Phillippa and Freddy.
ProdCo’s Leigh Powis was brought on and “was totally aligned” from the very start “but wanted to take things even further, from scanning real volcanoes and molding 12 metre model versions, or making actual Bloody Mary glow or charing real volcanologists' suits. Not for any other reason than the feeling that doing everything for real conjures the innate sense of something truly authentic. That feeling is so prominent in Leigh's work, he's a visionary capable of capturing tapestries of life and turning them into awe inspiring cinematic stories,” Phillippa and Freddy explain.
The spot is soundtracked by the ever-cool ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ by Lou Reed. “We spent so much time landing on that track,” Filip says. “We heard it very early on, but then we wanted to make sure we listened through plenty of options. The agency told me they'd heard more than 500 examples of music before we landed on this one!”
Once again the gut feeling was the right one as the song lends an unexpected languorousness to the visuals. Phillippa and Freddy add how the team “instantly loved how [the song] took all the danger out of it and turned into something you'd never expect to hear against molten lava.” In a moment of what surely was serendipity the team also discovered a past connection between Absolut and Lou Reed. “It was made all the sweeter when we found out Lou Reed had mentioned Absolut in his music and Absolut once played homage to the Velvet Underground.”
A sign of a good collaboration is when it delights and doesn’t raise questions as to why two brands would join together. Absolut TABASCO more than succeeds on that front. It’s a crossover that feels authentic, like it should have happened sooner and like it was inevitable for it to happen. “When you try to shoehorn your brand into something which doesn't feel natural, it's going to be very hard to be relevant and distinct,” says Filip of how Absolut evaluates every potential collaboration. Only when it feels natural is when “they're worth pursuing.”
Absolut TABASCO and the supporting campaign is a testament to the power of confidence in simplicity and insistence of working with existing product truths serving as proof that the best collaborations amplify, not dilute, brand identity.
