Russian Vodka with Female Know-How
Now here’s an ad campaign aesthetes everywhere, particularly of the female persuasion, can get behind. In the new cultural revolution of spirits, a vodka, and a Russian one at that, is being targeted exclusively to women. And before you think professional high powered types trolling the cocktail circuit, try this for demographic perfection: The image is not one of women at a bar, but rather “at the kitchen table …chasing shots with homemade snacks.”
Three hundred years after Peter the Great said it was okay for Russian women to drink vodka, marketers “have taken men out of the equation,” reports Michael Schwirtz in The New York Times (3/31/08). {Eureka!} A Russian company called Deyros is introducing Damskaya brand vodka — for women only. The product itself is really no different from other vodka on the market, offered in five flavors and selling for about $12. But its ads have is dressed up in “a lavender-tinged bottle with a distinctive feminine shape, adorned in a white skirt billowing upward, a la Marilyn Monroe.” The tagline: “Between us girls.” Damskaya’s arrival coincides with both the rise of the Russian economy as well as the emergence of a more independent Russian woman.
“We are leaving — but not quickly — the idea of men supporting women and the idea of women seeking men who will support them,” says Lena Vasilyeva, editor-in-chief of the Russian edition of Cosmopolitan magazine. Women are opening up their own bank accounts and are growing “more active in business and politics.” However, most Russian women remain wedded to their traditional roles. So, the Damsakaya pitch is not so much to a high-powered businesswoman as it is to “a girl who wants to visit her friend and relax a little because her husband is home with the children,” says Deyros marketing director, Natalya Shumilina.
The image is not one of women at a bar, but rather “at the kitchen table …chasing shots with homemade snacks and giggly banter.” This is not only at odds with the traditional positioning of vodka as a supremely masculine drink, but also violates “a golden rule of alcohol marketing: never advertise solely to women.” Some worry the effect will be more alcoholism in Russia and wonder where it will end. “Most likely the next step will be infant’s vodka for infant consumption,” says Gennady Onishchenko, who is the Russian equivalent of the American Surgeon General. He’s hoping to press charges against the company “for consumer rights violations.” As for the men, well, Nestle meanwhile is introducing a new “chocolate bar, called simply, For Men.” [Article] [via link]
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