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Who Drinks Ketel One in a Recession?The smartest way for ads to allude to the economy.

By Seth StevensonPosted Monday, Nov. 30, 2009, at 12:20 PM ET

The Spot: A group of handsome young men sit around a table, playing a friendly game of cards. "There was a time when substance was style," says the voice-over. "There was a time when men were men. It was last night." The well-dressed, impeccably groomed fellows swirl the ice cubes in their drinks, clink their glasses together, and break into warm laughter. "Ketel One," the announcer concludes. "Gentlemen, this is vodka."

Soon after the financial crisis came to a head last fall, television commercials began to openly address the weak economy. A Hyundai Super Bowl ad in early 2009 proclaimed, "We're all in this together," and offered a money-back guarantee if you bought a Hyundai and then lost your job. A Monster.com ad lampooned lavish CEO perks—brilliantly using a taxidermied moose to illustrate the inequities of contemporary capitalism. By spring, Allstate ads were declaring it "back to basics" time and asserting that "meatloaf and Jenga can actually be more fun than reservations and box seats."

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First of all: I've eaten meatloaf. I've played Jenga. You're not fooling me, Allstate.

But more important: Is it wise for an ad to acknowledge the recession? Raising the topic could easily just make people anxious while reminding them that they're trying to save money. Perhaps that's OK if the ad is for economically priced cars, or for a job search site, or for an insurance company hawking services that are more need-to-have than want-to-have. But what about an ad for a discretionary, quasi-luxury product like a high-end vodka?

This new campaign from Ketel One doesn't, on its face, make any reference to the economic downturn. But I'd argue it's an effective and fully internalized response to the crisis. It seems to signal the next, more evolved step in recession marketing.

Vodka has long been a category ruled by trends. The distilled spirit itself has little in the way of distinctive flavor (the better the vodka, the less you taste it), which means that packaging and marketing play enormous roles in shaping consumer preferences. Absolut, for instance, became one of the best-selling vodkas in America on the basis of an ad campaign that played on its silly name and the silhouette of its bottle. Grey Goose later overtook Absolut, becoming the top-selling superpremium vodka brand through a careful stratagem: outrageous overcharging—also known as the "if it costs this much, it must be awesome" ploy.

The Grey Goose playbook worked when the brand launched in 1997, in the era of ostentatious dot-com spending. It continued to work when the Jimmy-Choos-and-cosmos aesthetic of the Sex and the City took full cultural flight in the early 2000s. Solidly established at that point, the brand chugged along through the housing bubble. But now, with a crushing recession on, the smug and flashy Goose suddenly finds itself badly out of step with the times. An opportunity has emerged for another superpremium vodka to seize the zeitgeist.

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Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate. He is the author of Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World.

COMMENTS

How about Waffle House Vodka? I don't care if the company has been around for years. The name is unfelicitous to my delicate ears, like the famous misstep Chevy took when they sold the Nova ("no va") in Mexico without renaming it.

Ketel One sounds like it's the house vodka at the Kettle Restaurant chain, or maybe it was brewed last night in a kettle. No thanks.

-- Hugo
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The Kettel One text only ads were funny and clever. They aim for the adult vodka drinker as do the more recent television ads. These ads say that adults with a real, developed and distinguishing taste go after Kettel One. The Gray Goose ads are aimed at the club crowd - kids who just started making some money and just reach for whatever they heard is "premium". Most people over 25 do not care for the velvet rope, club scene.

As per the recession, I do not think the ads will convince people to purchase a more expensive vodka if they can't afford it. People tend to either care about their vodka brand and tend to stick to one consistently or they take whatever the bar will pour. Those out drinking in bars that prefer a better brand will likely dish out an extra 1-2 dollars for it. If they are already paying 7-8 for a cocktail, why not pay 9-10 instead? Those who are really counting the money are not out drinking to begin with.

-- Nasochkas
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