A Premium Brand Reaches Out to the Discerning Vodka Fan
By JANE L. LEVERE
Published: October 28, 2013
The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)
Belvedere Vodka, the Polish premium brand, has introduced its largest global ad campaign, with new television spots that stress its knowledgeable fans, composition and distillation process.
The new campaign, introduced last week, is by BBDO New York, part of the Omnicom Group, which became the vodka’s creative agency of record after it created a holiday spot late last year for Belvedere.
The new spots stress what makes Belvedere Vodka unique in the hotly contested vodka category. According to Charles Gibb, president of the brand, which is owned by Moët Hennessy, part of LVMH, its rivals today include primarily Grey Goose and Ciroc and, secondarily, Ketel One and Absolut.
Unlike its rivals, Belvedere is Polish, made from rye, distilled four times and made with water from the brand’s artesian well. Mr. Gibb said distilling Belvedere four times “is optimum for the product. It gives the balance between being vodka and being vodka with character and personality.” He also said Polish regulations prohibited the addition of anything once the vodka was blended.
To illustrate these points and also the brand’s fan base, one 30-second TV spot shows a group of young, well-dressed adults partying and drinking Belvedere. The voice-over says, “There’s a night out. And there’s a night out. And when you know the difference, there’s Belvedere. The finest rye, distilled four times according to a 600-year-old Polish tradition.”
Mr. Gibb said Belvedere associates itself “with a great night out and with people who are in the know about life, in the know about vodka.”
A second, 15-second spot depicts ice being chopped and vodka being poured from Belvedere’s distinctive bottle, decorated with branches of a tree; John Osborn, president of BBDO New York, called the bottle “one of the most powerful brand levers we have.” The voice-over says, “You may not know it’s made from rye. Or pure water from its own artesian well. Or distilled according to a 600-year-old Polish tradition. But when a bartender asks, ‘What are you having?' ”
Both this spot and the longer one end with a new tagline created by BBDO and Belvedere for the campaign, “Belvedere. Know the difference.”
The spots are running on cable television channels in the United States like ESPN, TNT Sports, AMC, History Channel and Comedy Channel, while they may also run in Britain in movie theaters.
In addition, the brand’s Facebook and Twitter accounts direct viewers to the spots on YouTube.
Mr. Osborn said Belvedere had a “very distinctive point of view that’s different from the product angle and the user angle. It’s not often you hear of vodka made from rye; others are made from other grains.”
“It’s also consumed by a generation of people who are social, fun and engaging. There’s nothing else quite like it in the
