Liquor Advertising Flows Freely During Holidays, but Some Call for Temperance

Michel Roux hopes consumers caught his Absolut vodka ad splashed on the back cover of this month’s California magazine.

But just in case they didn’t, Roux put the Absolut ad on the back page of December’s Vogue, Elle, Spy, Spin, Interview, Working Woman and Horticulture--40 publications in all. Roux has good reason to bust his ad budget during the holidays.

“The holiday season accounts for one-quarter of Absolut sales,” said Roux, chief executive of Carillon Importers, which distributes 2 million cases a year of the nation’s best-selling vodka. “Like department stores, it’s the time of year to be in business.”

Gift-giving and party-going make it the best of times for spirit sales. About one-third of the nation’s $24 billion in annual liquor sales take place during the holiday season, and that has many industry executives working overtime to capture some of the good cheer. In fact, many are already working on holiday campaigns for 1990.

But many liquor companies view the holiday marketing blitz as a costly tradition they would rather do without. And critics of liquor advertising say the industry is only taking advantage of the holiday to push more products.

Liquor ads seek to “normalize drinking and make it a sexy, necessary part of everybody’s life,” said Karen Lieberman, project associate at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a longtime critic of alcoholic beverage marketing. “The holidays are an increasingly used vehicle to do that.”

Still, liquor firms, which voluntarily refrain from advertising on television, flood magazines and billboards with eye-catching promotions and gimmicks. The December issue of LA Style, for example, weighs in with more than two dozen liquor ads, including a 3D ad for Tanqueray English gin, complete with special eyeglasses.

In stores, distillers compete for prime supermarket space at the end of aisles. Animated displays and bottles boxed in fancy foil and tin boxes fight for customer attention. A Johnnie Walker Red Scotch display features a bag of spirits descending a chimney.

“Every year they get very aggressive because it’s the busiest time of the year,” said marketing executive Al Marasca at Ralphs supermarkets, where liquor sales double in the period between Christmas Day and New Year’s.

Schieffelin & Somerset Co., which distributes such brands as Johnnie Walker and Hennessy cognac, spends nearly 40% of its $60-million ad budget in November and December. “The sheer (sales) volume means heavy advertising during the two months,” said Clint Rodenberg, marketing head at Schieffelin & Somerset.

The holiday liquor battle has intensified in recent years because liquor consumption has declined and consumers are turning to premium products, generally priced at $10 a bottle or more. Per-capita consumption has declined from a high of two gallons in 1978 to 1.54 gallons in 1988, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, an industry trade group.

However, sales of certain categories of liquor, such as high-priced vodkas and cognacs, have continued to climb. “People are drinking very selectively,” said Lynn Strang, council spokeswoman. “They are purchasing the high-end, premium products, and there has been a return to the cocktail and sophisticated drinks in recent years.”

The stakes are so high this time of year that no detail is too small. Packages, for example, are designed to glitter and shine under store lights. Kahlua, a coffee liqueur, includes two coffee cups in its holiday gift pack.

“The real bump in the business is the bump that gift-giving provides, and that’s why packaging is so important,” said Rodenberg at Schieffelin & Somerset.

The holidays also see intensified competitions for choice ad spots in magazines, such as the page opposite the table of contents or near the cover story.

“We certainly want to be the first brand in the book if we can get it,” Rodenberg said. “In a tough market, it can make a big difference.”

Not content with nearly monopolizing magazine ad space, some distillers have added some high-tech bells and whistles to their magazine promotions. Special issues of Rolling Stone and New York magazine this month will contain a hologram of a Finlandia vodka bottle.

Carillon Importers, which is recognized for its expensive, high-tech holiday ads, this year inserted talking Absolut ads that wish readers a merry Christmas in several languages as well as a happy Hanukkah.

Intense holiday competition is “why we try to get better and more spectacular advertising than other people,” said Roux at Carillon. But, he added, “it’s hard to measure how much more business you are going to get from something like that.”

Such ads have also backfired. Carillon said that about 10% of 200,000 motorized ads for its Grand Marnier liqueur this year failed to operate as intended. The battery-powered ad, carried in the New Yorker magazine, resembles an oversized greeting card that contains a paper Grand Marnier bottle that swings back and forth.

Many liquor companies try to avoid such costly ads and as much of the holiday marketing fray as they can. There is also a risk that a brand can become associated too closely with the holidays, limiting its popularity during the rest of the year.

“Being a heavy holiday product can literally be a kiss of death,” said Dean Laws, president of Eisman Johns & Laws, a Los Angeles advertising agency that includes Kahlua liqueur as a client. “It becomes so specialized in its orientation that it’s difficult to build strength for the other 10 months of the year.”

Some liquor companies prefer to spread their marketing dollars more evenly around the year as distillers try to build brand loyalty, said Ralph Hallquist, marketing and advertising vice president at Jim Beam.

“We are trying to build brand awareness,” said Hallquist, “and it’s awfully difficult to do that in a three-month spurt.”