Ask for It by Name!

You’ve got to hand it to the Swedes. Somehow they managed to develop a new kind of premium vodka (a drink until then generally associated with its Russian homeland), package the stuff in a dorky transparent bottle that reminded a lot of people of urine samples, grab a large chink of the world vodka market, and to do all this under the guidance of a state-run liquor monopoly that officially frowns on drinking alcohol.

What made the difference for Absolut (short for “Absolut Rent Brännvin,” Swedish for “Absolute Pure Vodka”) was one of the most brilliant advertising campaigns in history. Rather than relying on celebrity endorsements or cute animals, for more than 20 years since the product’s American debut in 1979 Absolut ads have focused on the bottle or, more often, the shape of the bottle appearing in unlikely places. With captions like “Absolut Perfection” (showing the bottle with a halo) and “Absolut New York” (the bottle outline superimposed on Central Park), Absolut ads have tweaked the public imagination and projected a sophistication and subtlety rarely found in modern advertising, let alone liquor ads.

Sometimes all it takes is one brilliant idea. Reuben Mattus (1913-1994) was a Polish immigrant who began his career peddling his family’s ice cream from a horse-drawn wagon. After more than 30 years of selling his wares on a small scale to restaurants and stores in the Bronx, Reuben noticed something about American consumers. They wanted good ice cream, but they also wanted something exotic.

So Reuben put on his thinking cap and came up with the name “Häagen-Dazs” for his new line of premium, high-fat ice cream. Although it sports an umlaut and sounds Scandinavian, the name “Häagen-Dazs” is pure nonsense — it doesn’t actually mean anything in any known language. But consumers took the bait, and “Häagen-Dazs” was an immediate hit with everyone (except dieters, of course). An ironic footnote: Hedging his bets after he sold Häagen-Dazs to Pillsbury in 1983, Reuben Mattus went on to develop and market “Mattus’ Lowfat Ice Cream.”