Vodka may be most commonly associated with Russia, but the drink is just as important to the country’s maritime neighbor, Sweden.

Sweden is part of the “vodka belt”, a group of countries in Eastern and Northern Europe that produce and consume primarily spirits (as opposed to beer in Germany or wine in France). Norway, Iceland, and Finland, among others, are also part of the vodka belt, and each country subscribes to their own lore about why their vodka is the best vodka. 

No one agrees on the origins of vodka because there have been too many similar drinks throughout history, some of which were used for medicinal purposes and contained low alcohol content. There is a legend about a monk inventing vodka around 1430 in Moscow, but to say this was the first recipe for vodka would likely annoy a Polish alcohol connoisseur. 

From alcoholism to monopoly: Sweden’s vodka problem

What we do know is how much people in Sweden loved their vodka in the 1830s and 1840s. Back then it was common for Swedish adults and older teens to drink at least two liters of spirits per week, from their “breakfast drink” to their "flea drink" before bedtime. 

Even before innovations in medicine, people somehow knew this much booze wasn’t healthy. A temperance movement began in Sweden near the end of the 19th century, and pubs started to operate under so many control measures that they became a shadow of the lively environments they once were. 

Sweden’s teetotaling tipping point was the “Gothenburg system”, which prevented public liquor stores in the city of Gothenburg from making a profit on spirits. The rule would then spread to other parts of the country and infiltrate other parts of the law, ultimately resulting in a liquor monopoly by the Swedish government that would last until the country joined the European Union in 1995. 

Man vs. monopoly: Lars Olsson Smith, Absolut founder

Lars Olsson Smith, the man who would eventually establish Absolut’s first iteration as a company, was a vocal opponent of Sweden’s liquor monopoly. 

In 1876, when Stockholm’s city council retained exclusive rights to sell alcohol in the city for the next five years, Smith refused to apply for a liquor permit on principle. By then, the “King of Vodka” had made a name for himself helping liquor suppliers find international buyers during the world economic crisis of 1856 — so he knew how to get around rules. 

While Stockholm may have been off limits to Smith’s business, the small island of Reimersholme wasn’t. A stone’s throw away from the city, Reimersholme was where Smith opened his first liquor factory. He offered customers free ferry service between Reimersholme and Stockholm to encourage people to visit and buy cheaper booze than what they could get in the city proper. 

Smith’s refusal to play by Sweden’s rules would lead to improvements in distillation, a global brand, and one of the longest-running marketing campaigns in history. Keep reading to find out how Absolut keeps to its Swedish roots while achieving global recognition through contemporary art, party culture, and investments in design.

Timeline

Lars Olsson Smith era

1836: Lars Olsson Smith is born to farmers in Kiaby, Sweden.

1856–1862: Smith becomes the “King of Vodka” by starting an agency to help liquor suppliers find buyers during an economic crisis.

1868: Smith travels to France and hears about a company that removes fusel alcohol from spirits. 

1876: Stockholm’s city council is offered the exclusive right to sell alcohol in the city for the next five years.

1877: Smith circumvents Stockholm’s liquor monopoly by opening his own shop on the island of Reimersholme, and he offers free ferry service to encourage people to visit — and buy cheaper booze. 

1878: Obsessed with improving the quality of alcohol, Smith organizes an alcohol congress in Paris and invites scientists from all over the world. 

1879: Absolut vodka is founded when Smith introduces “Absolut Rent Brännvin” (Absolute Pure Vodka) through a new distillation method called “rectification.” 

1880: Smith hears of a coup to remove him from his own company and sells his shares for 1,200,000 SEK.

1913: Smith dies.

V&S Group ownership (Swedish monopoly)

1917: The Swedish government monopolizes the country's alcohol industry under the V&S Group, selling vodka under the name “Absolut Rent Brännvin.”

1978: Gunnar Broman, Absolut ad man, finds a vintage apothecary bottle in a store in Sweden’s oldest neighborhood and models Absolut’s iconic bottle after it. 

1979: Absolut vodka is introduced to the global market by Sweden’s V&S Group.

1980: Absolut launches its signature bottle design with its famous medallion bearing the portrait of founder Lars Olsson Smith.

1980: New York advertising agency TBWA launches their "Absolut Perfection" print ad and kicks off a 25-year campaign with 1,500 variations. 

1981: Absolut begins targeting gay men in The Advocate and After Dark, later sponsoring events in bars and extending ad campaigns to LGBTQ+ folks. 

1986: Michel Roux, French-born liquor executive and executive at Absolut’s distribution company, commissions Andy Warhol to create an Absolut ad for $65,000.

1987: Absolut launches their City Series ads, starting with an artistic depiction of Los Angeles. 

1988: A bartender at The Odeon in New York City invents the Cosmopolitan with Absolut vodka. 

1988: Absolut begins to commission lesser known artists to create ads and positions the brand as part of the contemporary art world.

1990: Absolut becomes a founding sponsor of the GLAAD Media Awards.

1992: Absolut is inducted into the American Marketing Association's Marketing Hall of Fame with just two other brands: Coca-Cola and Nike.

2000: Absolut sells 4.5 million cases in the U.S. as a result of great advertising, up from 10,000 cases in 1980.

Pernod Ricard ownership

2008: French group Pernod Ricard buys Absolut from the Swedish state for €5.63 billion.

2010: Absolut collaborates with Spike Jonze to create the short film I’m here, which is screened at Sundance.

2012: Absolut partners with Swedish House Mafia to create an original track and music video to promote the Absolut Greyhound cocktail.

2013: Absolut launches their “Transform Today” campaign with four international emerging artists.

2014: Absolut shifts their marketing strategy and commissions artists to create experiences through Art Bars, a nod to their Studio 54 days.

2017: Absolut receives a special award at the Corporate Art Awards Ceremony “for their long-running collaboration with 550 artists on 850 projects to shape their corporate image and brand.”

2018: Absolut launches their sustainability campaign to highlight their production process centralized in Åhus, Sweden.

2021: Absolut redesigns its iconic bottle as an homage to its roots in Åhus, Sweden.

L.O. Smith’s obsession with pure vodka: Where Absolut gets its name

While Smith’s beef with Sweden’s liquor monopoly was mostly driven by the desire to make a profit, the entrepreneur was also obsessed with improving the quality of spirits. After learning everything he could about the distillation process, Smith set his sights on removing more fusel alcohol from vodka.

Fusel alcohol is a byproduct of the fermentation process. When you’re drinking any alcoholic beverage, ethanol is the stuff you want. Ethanol contains two carbons, while fusel alcohol contains more than two carbons.

Also called “fusel oil”, fusel alcohol is associated with a bad taste characterized by a spicy bite or solvent flavor. Smith knew he could produce a better tasting product if he mastered the art of distillation, so he traveled extensively to learn from other producers in Europe.

Smith may not have invented any distillation processes, but he is responsible for introducing continuous distillation to Sweden at scale and funding research that improved it. 

Back then vodka was distilled three or four times, which produced a “dirtier” product with more fusel alcohol left behind. Smith’s continuous distillation, on the other hand, produced what he called an “absolutely pure vodka” — and that’s how Absolut was created.    

Absolut bottle design: Early brand recognition through design simplicity 

Absolut vodka may have been born in 1879, but the brand didn’t come of age until exactly 100 years later. 

In 1979, L.O. Smith’s creation, Absolut Rent Brännvin (Absolute Pure Vodka), was owned by Vin & Sprit, a company owned by the Kingdom of Sweden that was responsible for all wine and spirit retail in the country. When Sweden’s preference for wine began to overshadow their taste for vodka, Vin & Sprit looked beyond their home country to grow sales.

Vin & Sprit CEO Lars Lindmark hired advertiser Gunnar Broman at Stockholm’s Carlsson & Broman ad agency to develop an export strategy for the brand. As part of the brand development process, Broman was tasked with designing a new look for the Absolut bottle. He found that look in an antique shop in Stockholm’s Old Town.

Bewitched by an old apothecary bottle, Broman sold Absolut on the idea of differentiation through simplicity (similar to Chanel’s strategy for the Chanel No. 5 bottle). At the time, liquor bottles were designed with ornate gold and silver trinkets, but Broman was convinced Absolut could stand out with a look that was almost … medicinal. 

Absolut’s first version of their bottle, since revised, 1979. Photo credit: First Versions

Absolut’s classic bottle design.

After a lot of rejected concepts, Absolut decided to adopt some key design elements to showcase their brand:

• A transparent bottle with an apothecary shape to draw people’s attention to its placement on a shelf at a bar 
• Classic print ad design with Absolut’s product name at the top as a headline followed by script about Absolut’s history and production
• A portrait of L.O. Smith as a silver seal, another nod to Absolut’s rich history
• “Country of Sweden” as a tagline, to appeal to Americans’ taste for fine imported products  
  

Absolut’s bottle is a prime example of why design matters. Its shape, accents, and simplicity would form the basis of one of the most effective and recognizable brand campaigns in the history of advertising. 

Absolut Perfection: The longest-running print campaign ever

Good advertising communicates a product’s benefits in clear and compelling ways. 

Great advertising communicates a product’s benefits by anchoring that product within intersections of art, culture, and design — all while managing to stay relevant over a long period of time. 

In 1980, Studio 54 was about to experience a revival under new ownership, and party culture in New York was alive and well. With a new bottle ready to grace the shelves of many a bar like Studio 54, Absolut had made its debut in the United States a year prior. But they would need much more than an apothecary bottle to stand out amidst the glitz and glamor of 1980s New York party culture.  

Enter New York advertising agency TBWA. Hired to introduce Absolut to the elite American party goer, TBWA leaned into two of the core elements that had made Absolut what it was for 100 years: purity and simplicity. Where they veered off course for the American market, however, was tradition. 

To introduce a sense of playfulness to Absolut’s penchant for simplicity, TBWA created what would become the longest running print campaign in American ad history with a whopping 1,500 versions over 25 years. (Fun fact: Absolut never launched their famous campaign on television.)

Starting with this ad, the Absolut bottle remained the center of attention for almost all ads moving forward, always accompanied with a play on the word “absolute”. 

“The hero is the bottle. The bottle is the star,” said Richard Lewis, worldwide account representative for TBWAChiatDay.

By the time the campaign ended in the mid 2000s, Absolut had increased its sales in the United States from 10,000 cases in 1980 to 4.5 million in 2000. In that time they became the most heavily advertised liquor brand in the world. 

Here are some notable highlights from the Absolut print campaign:

Absolut brand affinity: Contemporary art and cultural capital

You may not think advertising is an artform, but Andy Warhol would disagree with you. “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art,” he said.

Once quoted as saying that, while he didn’t drink alcohol, he “sometimes uses Absolut as perfume”, Andy Warhol loved the Absolut bottle so much that he agreed to draw his own interpretation of it for an ad. In 1986, legend has it, Michel Roux, liquor executive at Absolut’s American distribution company, commissioned Andy Warhol to create the ad for $65,000. 

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While it’s impressive a brand can claim Andy Warhol as a collaborator, the ad launched so much more than a one-off partnership. It was the beginning of what would become a long-term relationship with contemporary artists, some famous but many unknown at the time their ads were produced.

The same year Andy Warhol created his ad, Absolut collaborated with contemporary artist Keith Haring, whose art emerged from 1980s New York City graffiti subculture. (Only four years later, Haring died of AIDS-related complications at the young age of 31.)

In 1989, an Absolut ad campaign helped launch Brazilian artist Romero Britto’s career in the United States after he’d seen some recognition in Miami. His work has since been shown at the Louvre in Paris and at the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Absolut’s alignment with contemporary art was a smart move for the company. The brand’s association with some of the biggest names in contemporary art allowed Absolut to cash in on the cultural capital of the urban art scene. While simultaneously collaborating with icons like Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz, and Damien Hirst and discovering up-and-coming artists like Romero Britto, Absolut could position their brand at the forefront of the New York art scene — which, as a whole, really loved to party.

Since the 1980s, Absolut has expanded their repertoire of artist collaborations to include music, fashion, and design. In 2012, Absolut collaborated with Swedish House Mafia on a commercial to launch its new Greyhound cocktail.

In 2013, Absolut collaborated with denim designer Loren Cronk on a denim skin for its bottle that would keep vodka cool for up to two hours. 

See more of Absolut’s recent artist collaborations here.

Absolut pinkwashing: Among the first LGBTQ+ brands

In 1981, Absolut placed full-page back cover ads in The Advocate and After Dark, two magazines for gay men. While many publications and organizations have applauded Absolut for its “brave” marketing choice, there are a few strategic points to consider. 

When Absolut began including gay men in its target demographic, gay party culture had been growing in the New York discotheques of the 1970s, where same-sex couples were allowed to openly dance with each other for the first time. Since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, LGBTQ+ political movements were picking up speed and more queer spaces opened as gathering places for queer marginalized communities. 

Absolut’s strategic decision to speak to gay men was smart, not brave. The Advocate and After Dark were magazines specifically for gay men who were part of “the scene”, so it was easy for Absolut to segregate its queer-focused advertising strategy from heterosexual audiences. 

Absolut knew queer men were at the forefront of urban party culture (Andy Warhol, for example) and that they loved to drink. While gay men could still lose their jobs if they were outed at work, they were also beginning to enjoy a higher disposable income because they were less likely to have children due to social stigma and homophobic laws.

But 1981 was also when the AIDS epidemic in the United States began. Between 1981–1987, 46,251 men contracted AIDS, 16,908 of which died. The community went into crisis mode, with organizations like Larry Kramer’s ACT UP forming in New York to protest the U.S. government’s lack of funding for treatment options. While many people within the community chose activism as a way to cope with the epidemic, a lot of gay men sought comfort in the party scene. 

Absolut didn’t shy away from the gay community during the crisis. Todd Evans of Rivendell Media, which buys ads for the National LGBT Media Association, confirms Absolut’s presence in the gay community throughout the 1980s. “They continued to advertise through the ’80s,” he says, “buying every back page ad that was available in gay media…. If you’re over 50, chances are you’re still an Absolut patron, because you remember that time in our lives, of not having acceptance.”

In 1990, Absolut became a founding sponsor of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) media awards. Twelve years later, Absolut would proudly announce its support of the organization with an ad dedicated to the awards.

As of 2020, Absolut has spent more than $31 million on LGBTQ marketing, and donated more than $40 million to LGBTQ+ charities.

Absolut’s future as a sustainability brand

While Absolut continues to support contemporary art as a brand, the company has made some notable pivots in the last few years to focus on sustainability messaging. 

Absolut’s bottle design has always been an homage to its Swedish heritage and traditions. The production of the vodka itself all happens in Åhus, near where founder L.O. Smith was born. In 2018, Absolut launched their Vodka with Nothing to Hide campaign, featuring real Absolut employees from Åhus who were willing to bare all and talk about how Absolut vodka is made. 

More recently in 2021, Absolut trialed its new Absolut Paper Bottle as the “brand’s first step to achieving a fully bio-based bottle able to contain spirits.” As opposed to Absolut’s traditional bottle, which contained 47% recycled glass, the prototype contains 57% paper and 43% recycled plastic. 

In May, Absolut reported that they “still have some important goals to achieve, like scaling the technology and quality testing of the integrated bio-based material that will replace the plastic film we use today. That is not done overnight though, so we’re still at least one and a half years from seeing it on shelves.”

Absolut has also pledged to “make Absolut Vodka a fully carbon-neutral product by 2030.” The process involves reducing the impact of the company’s wheat production by 10% by using “climate-smart fertilizers”. 

While it will be important to watch so-called sustainability brands like a hawk throughout the 2020s — especially companies like Absolut with centralized production and shipping over large distances — Absolut seems to have read the room on climate change, at least. 

If Absolut is willing to change their iconic bottle for the sake of sustainable packaging, it’s not nothing. If “the bottle is the star”, after all, then any change to the bottle means a change to the brand. And from here on out, Absolut’s brand is jumping on the sustainability bandwagon.