Absolut Appellation

The primary reason for the overwhelming success of the the Absolut print ad campaign is the way in which the ads hail (see appellation) their viewers. In their book, The Sign of the Swoosh, authors Robert Goldman and Steve Papson point out that "Advertising has learned to cater to viewers finding pleasure in the act of deciphering the ad itself."(Goldman & Papson, p. 53) Absolut has both recognized and seized upon this concept as a method of hailing the Absolut ad viewer. An Absolut ad demands something of us--to decipher a word play, recognize an extra-textual reference, and identify the ad's referent.

The "puzzles" presented to us in the Absolut ads read like trivia recognition games a la Trivial Pursuits and Jeopardy. For example, the Absolut Washington advertisement consists of the Absolut bottle wrapped in red electrician's tape. In order to interpret (and, thus, give meaning to) the ad, we as viewers must first recognize that the ad refers to Washington D.C. and, further, that Washington D.C. is the seat of our nation's government. Once that has been ascertained, it becomes clearer that the ad is alluding to the political "red tape" that plagues our government. Of course, the final piece of information we must add is that the term "red tape" is colloquial for tedious bureaucracy. This "connecting of the dots," so to speak, all takes place in a matter of milliseconds in the minds of today's media savvy viewers whose finely honed media literacy is the very subject of these ads. Much of the campaign's enormous popularity is attributed to this way in which the ads engage us by making us fill in the blank. Some of the following ads provide excellent examples:

--Absolut Chicago, in which the letters of the bottle are being blown off. We are asked to recall that the nickname for the city of Chicago is "The Windy City."

--Absolut Geneva, in which we are shown a series of gold-plated cogs and gears with the Absolut bottle shape among them. We are asked to remember that A)Geneva is in Switzerland, and B)The Swiss are famous for making watches.

--Absolut Rosebud, in which we are shown a sled in the shape of the Absolut bottle resting against a wall. We are asked to recall that Rosebud was the name of the sled in the movie Citizen Kane.

Of course, not all Absolut ads follow this pattern (See Postmodernism). Some ads simply employ the technique of morphing the bottle--read: Sign--into a given landmark or appropriated item. This technique was used in the Absolut Brooklyn, Absolut History, and Absolut Au Kurant ads among others. Although this method offers a much simpler hermeneutic puzzle (i.e. identify the referent), these ads still engage the viewer in the meaning process. The morphed bottle ads demand that we be familiar with the ads referent and, thereby, provide a blank for us to fill.

Aligning Absolut's sign--the bottle--with appropriated images, however, is not without consequence. For instance, in the Absolut History ad, the bottle is morphed into the rings of a cut tree trunk. Is it reading too much into the ad to think of deforestation? In another ad, an Absolut Au Kurant piece in which the bottle is morphed into the laces of a woman's black leather corset, connotes images of an S&M dominatrix. The reification process which takes place in the minds of the viewer, all of a sudden becomes much more open to non-preferrential readings of the piece. Despite tight copyright laws and litigation to protect the bottle as a value-packed sign, the Absolut bottle has begun to symbolize the entire alcohol industry. Ad Busters has produced several anti-alcohol ads which mimic the Absolut campaign's metastructure. One ad, titled Absolut Hangover, shows a noose in the shape of the Absolut bottle. The other presents a saggy, slumping bottle and is entitled Absolut Impotence. Both these ads morph the bottle in the same way as the origninal ads but depict the medically proved side effects of drinking alcohol.

The Absolut bottle was also used by the Bay Area rap trio, The Coup, to signify all alcohol and its crushing effects on inner city neighborhoods. The title of their album, Genocide and Juice, makes reference to both the Snoop Doggy Dogg hit "Gin and Juice" and the popular soliloquy delivered by Laurence Fishburn in Boyz 'n' the Hood about how the powers that be created the liquor store/pawn shop checkerboard of Amercian ghettoes to neutralize the power of the urban black population. The cover shows one member of the group pouring out a forty-ounce bottle of malt liquor in front of an Absolut bottle. The label of the bottle has been changed to read "Genocide & Juice."

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