Absolut Vodka Celebrates Pride By Raising Awareness For Declining LGBTQ+ Bars

Brand Challenge

Absolut Vodka has been an ally to the LGBTQ+ community well before it became commonplace to slap a rainbow on a logo. In fact, Absolut was the first spirits company to create the iconic rainbow Pride bottle over 20 years ago. To celebrate Pride 2022, Absolut wanted to lead with actionable allyship and prove that they’re more than just a rainbow logo on a vodka bottle.

Press

This work was a part of the Absolut Out&Open campaign covered in AdWeek.

Creative Solution

More and more, consumers expect brands to not only reflect their values, but to actively participate in activism. In response, Absolut brought their Out&Open Pride campaign to Reddit to raise awareness and launch a conversation around an important topic: the decline of gay bars in the wake of The Pandemic.

Because conversation is the lifeblood of Reddit, Absolut hosted an AMA with an acclaimed professor of sociology and author around the topic. Absolut promoted the AMA before and during the event to drive awareness and participation. When the AMA was over, Absolut partnered with Emmy-winning artist, Mike Perry, to create beautiful custom illustrations that highlighted the best of the AMA conversation. The illustrations were scaled across Reddit in a promoted carousel to extend the life and message of the AMA.

Evergreen creative — a mix of video and static campaign assets — helped round out the campaign message. Ultimately, the campaign was incredibly successful, yielding lifts in Unaided Awareness, Consideration Intent, Purchase Intent, and LGBTQ+ Support.

Credits