Gentlemen, this is vodka

The Ketel One ad campaign of a few years ago was a quiet triumph for copywriters everywhere. The first time I saw one of their billboards in Soho, it stopped me in my tracks. Just a few words in the corner of a big white billboard. No photos. No drawings. Not even any color.

Plus, the ad made the brave assumption that it was addressed to the single, solitary drinker of this particular Dutch vodka. It picked one of the seven classic emotional motivators*—exclusivity—and ran with it.

The writers behind this campaign must have had nerve—and so did the executives who approved it. (It couldn’t have been a committee.) The campaign had its critics, but I’ll bet it worked.

Maybe the old campaign had run its course, but it’s now been replaced by one that could be for almost any liquor. I don’t hate it as much as some do, but in trying to target its audience, it starts by excluding all women and apparently focuses on young white guys with creative-type office jobs (in an ad agency?) who feel some nostalgia for the Mad Men days. Not a big group.

*The seven are Flattery, Fear, Greed, Anger, Guilt, Exclusivity, and Salvation.