For the not-so-serious drinker: Marshmallow vodka
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Vodkas flavored with citrus and berry have been around for years and recently some newer brands have been trying to create buzz with unusual flavors.
But this holiday season, for the first time, the world’s largest vodka brand is trying to appeal to Americans’ sweet tooth with zany flavors like “fluffed marshmallow” and “whipped cream.”
Faced with relentless competition from established and upstart brands, Smirnoff’s owner — the London-based beverage group Diageo Plc — took inspiration from things like cookie-scented candles and vanilla-scented laundry soap. It then relied on focus groups, mixologists and food scientists to come up with the new drinks, which went through some 15 iterations, according to the company’s chief marketing and innovation officer for North America, Peter McDonough.
Tasters preferred a “toasted” marshmallow flavor, but the marketing team decided that “fluffed” marshmallow would be a better name, McDonough said, since it would help avoid perceptions that the drink tasted “chalky or burnt.”
Diageo paired the drinks with an advertising campaign around the title “Fluffed and Whipped” that features a circus of dancers, dogs, aerialists, women spraying whipped cream into their mouths and model Amber Rose purring that “vodka never felt this good.”
YOUNG VS MATURE DRINKERS
The mixing of sugar and spice has struck a chord, particularly with younger, female drinkers, say some New York bartenders.
“In five years of bartending, I have never seen a bottle sell out that fast,” said Dena Kravitz of Rosie O’Grady’s Irish Pub in Manhattan’s Times Square. “It’s the martini of the younger generation.”
Smirnoff, born in Russia about 150 years ago, says it is trying to make itself relevant and cool to younger adults, drinkers in their 20s and 30s. But some industry opponents see sweet drinks as moves to lure under-age drinkers who can use them to transition from soft drinks to hard liquor.
“I see this move into these sweet drinks as catering to a youthful taste,” said James Mosher, president of Alcohol Policy Consultations, a private consultancy group. “This is not a drink that a mature adult is going to prefer.”
Mosher wrote an article slated for publication in the January 2012 issue of The American Journal of Public Health in which he argues that youth-oriented marketing campaigns by Smirnoff and other distilled spirits, which appeal to underage drinkers, were a key factor in the rise of spirits consumption over the past decade in the United States.
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Article source: PRNewswire
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