Absolut Vodka Has Been at Pride Before It Was Brand Safe

In November 1981, a spirits importer called Carillon did something that, at first blush, seemed ordinary: It bought a half-page ad in a magazine. Carillon held the U.S. distribution rights for Absolut, a Swedish vodka that few people had heard of. The ad itself was novel. It featured the clear glass bottle and only two words of copy: Absolute Temptation. Liquor ads rarely took such a minimalistic approach, but what made the ad groundbreaking wasn’t what it was, but where: Page 5 of The Advocate, a publication for lesbians and gay men. Today, Pride gets an entire month featuring a who’s who of multinational corporations clamoring for pink dollars by seeing who can hoist the rainbow flag the highest. But things were different in 1981. Ronald Reagan’s ascent to the presidency in January presaged a decade of religious conservatism. That June, scientists were also puzzling over a new virus—later to be called HIV—that would soon wipe out an entire generation of gay men. The LGBTQ+ community, in other words, was the last group a major brand would risk advertising to. That Absolut took the chance is down to the decision of one man: Carillon CEO Michel Roux. Roux had not only instructed agency TWBA to hire artists including Andy Warhol and LeRoy Neiman to use Absolut’s bottle as a muse, but to place ads in gay magazines like The Advocate and After Dark. “My philosophy was … we would do risky things,” Roux said in an interview in Chilled Magazine before his death in 2019. “We did so many things with the gay community. I did it to fight the bigotry. My philosophy was, 'If you’re doing good, you’ll do well.' This is what Absolut did.” But that wasn’t all. Roux (a married, straight man with children) understood that gay men were cultural trailblazers, and that the products they bought would eventually become cool in the mainstream market. Which is what happened. Absolut displaced Stolichnaya to be America’s most popular vodka as early as 1985, and it’s still in the top five bestselling brands today. Overlooked in that success story is the real risk of backlash from mainstream customers that the brand took all those years ago. Was corporate worried about that possibility? “Absolutely,” said Pam Forbus, svp and CMO of Absolut parent Pernod Ricard North America. “There are always concerns about taking risks like that and how it might impact the larger business. That era, unfortunately, harbored a lot of fear and prejudices against the LGBTQ community. We didn’t pick that route because it was popular, but because it was what we believed in as a brand.” For Absolut, the gamble has also paid off in terms of loyalty as scores of brands now come courting during Pride Month. “People of a certain generation remember those early efforts,” Forbus said. “They share that knowledge with a new generation. They remember that we spoke to the LGBTQ community before it was popular to do so. We hear it from bar owners, distributors, everyday consumers. It’s something we are extremely proud of.” Bar association Absolut has given over $40 million to LGBTQ+ causes over the years, though its latest effort aims to help an institution that few expected would ever be in trouble: gay bars. In partnership with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce (and a creative assist from SNL actor and comedian Bowen Yang), Absolut has launched Out & Open, an initiative to raise funds and provide succession training for owners of LGBTQ+ drinking establishments—which have shrunk by 15% between 2019 and 2021, thanks in part to dating apps and the pandemic. While the bar scene isn’t everyone’s thing, there’s no disputing its place “at the center of the LGBTQ community,” as Forbus put it. Spin the bottle It was importer Michel Roux (1, third from left) who had the idea to advertise to the LGBTQ+ community, starting the effort in 1981 with a half-page ad in The Advocate (2). Roux took the risk despite the burgeoning AIDS crisis (3) and the vilification of gay men. In the years to come, Absolut would beat a steady drum for the gay community, with ads like a 1995 nod to Fire Island (4), a 2001 salute to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (5) and, since 2008, routine use of the rainbow flag on the Absolut bottle (6).

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Absolut Vodka Has Been at Pride Before It Was Brand-Safe

4 decades ago, advertisers wouldn't get near the LGBTQ+ community. This one did.

Robert Klara

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Robert Klara