Distilled spirits overall recently have been showing minuscule gains, at best, but the pricey import vodkas are on a tear.
Vodkas, with 26 percent share of distilled spirits, still top every other category, and imports are driving that growth. That share, incidentally, is double the next closest category–cordials and liqueurs, with 13 percent.
In 1999, import vodkas–brands like Absolut, Stolichnaya and Ketel One–were up 6 percent from a year earlier.
“People are drinking better,” says Frank Walters, senior vice president of Manhattan-based M. Shanken Communications and director of research for its Impact annual distilled spirits study. “There’s no stopping the rise of the imports,” which now account for nearly one-fifth of all vodka sales.
With a whopping 430-plus labels in the U.S. alone, by one count, getting a message across, amid all the promotional clutter and without a huge advertising budget, is a constant challenge.
Enter Jim Beam Brands, a Deerfield-based firm which recently brought in a Netherlands import called Vox. It’s gaining distribution, and now is breaking a new ad campaign from Young & Rubicam Chicago.
Print ads, in such magazines as Esquire, Gentleman’s Quarterly, Vanity Fair and Fortune, include subtle humor, while focusing on the product’s qualities.
Vox (suggested retail of nearly $28 for a 750-milliliter bottle), which goes through a five-time distillation process, does have elegant packaging–a column-shaped bottle of Austrian glass.
Some imbibers say there are taste differences in vodka.
In one ad, Beam tries to set its brand apart, saying: “Most people can’t tell the difference the fifth distillation makes. Let them drink their dirty little vodka.” Copy in another ad reads: “Why do we distill more times than the average palate can distinguish? Because there are 432 other vodkas for those people.”
The Jim Beam arsenal includes such other vodkas as Kamchatka, Wolfschmidt, Gilbey’s and Dark Eyes (said to be the top-selling brand in Indiana). Those brands total an estimated 2.8 million 9-liter cases.
Beam is hardly looking at those numbers, but case sales in modest six-figures will do for Vox, for now.
DDB boosts Scarpelli: The “Chicago Connection” is still intact at DDB Worldwide, as the Manhattan-based ad agency elevates Bob Scarpelli to U.S. creative officer, in addition to his current post as vice chairman and chief creative officer of DDB Chicago. The post of U.S. creative chief has been vacant. Scarpelli, 47, who will still be based in Chicago and has worked with DDB and predecessors for 23 years, reports to Ken Kaess, the New York-based president of DDB Worldwide. Kaess’ boss is Keith Reinhard, CEO, also in New York. Former Chicagoan Reinhard once headed what was Needham Harper & Steers here, moving to Manhattan in 1982, initially heading up the agency’s U.S. operation, later adding increased responsibilities. Scarpelli is hoping to raise the creative profile of DDB’s domestic operation, which has four other offices. “We want to be one of the top three creative shops in every market,” says Scarpelli, who adds that being No. 1 wouldn’t hurt either.
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San Antonio-based SBC Communications’ decision to move the creative portion of its $85 million Ameritech Corp. ad account out of Lowe Lintas & Partners Chicago and into GSD&M in Austin, Texas, had been rumored for months. The consolidation with GSD&M, which previously picked up all SBC media responsibility (a total of $350 million), leaves about 50 Lowe Lintas staffers looking for new jobs as the office at 142 E. Ontario St. is being closed. A few will work for Lowe Lintas Zippatoni, a new joint venture based in Chicago.
Personnel: Linda A. Mura to VP of public relations at Classic Residence by Hyatt, a senior living affiliate of Hyatt Corp. … Marie Roche to VP, director of operations at Frankel. … Bill Harrington to VP/business development at Interior Space International.
Strictly Personal: Birthday greetings to Steven A. Majewski, 44 (Chicago Loop News); Chris Zorich, 31; Michael A. Poss, 36 (TrizecHahn Office Properties); Abbe Sparks, 40; Stephen T. Johnson, 33; Peter Debreceny, 55 (Allstate Corp.); Jim Dimonekas, 38 (Playboy magazine associate publisher); and R. C. Longworth, 65, and Jim Mateja, 55 (both Tribune).