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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
9. Creative Strategy:
Implementation and
Evaluation
Reaching for the Skyy
The last five years have been heady times for
vodka as the product category has experienced
strong growth and one wave of chic new brands
has been followed by another. Consumption of
vodka has increased steadily since 1998, and the
vodka category is double the size of the next
distilled-spirits segment, rum. Ironically, a blandtasting
product that was best known for helping
Russians make it through a cold, bleak winter has
become a status symbol for many trendy 20- and
30-somethings in America. Marketers have been
trying to capitalize on the growing popularity of
vodka, and the growth of the “cocktail culture”
that has brought more young adults to the spirits
market, by creating a distinct image for their
brands and getting consumers to think of them
as cutting edge, edgy, and hip. While a myriad of
new vodka brands have been introduced in
recent years, none has been as successful at
attracting the attention of consumers as Skyy.
The brand has overtaken Stolichnaya as the
number-two super-premium vodka in the United
States, trailing only Absolut.
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Skyy was founded in 1992 by Maurice Kanbar,
who developed it as a premium brand for older
connoisseurs, like himself, desirous of the perfect
martini. Kanbar developed a four-stage distillations
process that extracts many of the congers,
which are natural impurities that remain in alcohol
after distillations and may contribute to
headaches, and created what he believed to be
the purest of vodkas. The Skyy name came to him
one day when he was looking out the window of
his San Francisco apartment and viewing a brilliant
blue sky. The additional “y” in the brand
name was simply an addition to make the name
less common and develop a trademark, while the
cobalt-blue bottle was selected to connote a distinctive,
daring product.
Much of Skyy’s initial growth was driven by
word of mouth. The company was successful in getting
its eye-catching blue bottle into swanky Hollywood
parties and nightclubs known for attracting
a hip crowd. Skyy quickly generated a buzz on the
nightclub circuit, where word spread that its
quadruple-distilled formula reduced the likelihood
of hangovers. The company also spent much of its
limited marketing budget on sponsoring independent
film festivals and producing artsy short films
that were shown at these events. Skyy commissioned
these short films by well-known independent
film directors as part of its commitment to the
independent film industry, which is one of Kanbar’s
passions. The directors are not asked to create an
advertisement for Skyy, although each film does
include “a cocktail moment.” The Oscar-winning
director of the film Europa has directed one of the
films, and supermodel Claudia Schiffer has
costarred with Skyy in another cocktail moment.
The company uses the Internet to feature these
films as a way of expanding its presence on the
Web and also shows them as part of the festivals
and movie premieres that it sponsors.
Advertising has also become an important
part of Skyy’s brand-building efforts. When the