I once met an ex-Marketing Director of Grey Goose. I was a mid-level marketer trying to find my place in the world and became quickly enamoured with the glitz and glamour of the brand. He shared stories that felt like every marketers dream. Apparently, they sent vodka into space and resold it in bars for an 1,000x mark up. Or another tale of producing a feature length, Hollywood film with their marketing budget, only to make a profit AND drive the brand.

I can’t verify these stories with a source, but it sparked a curiosity into the legacy of the Grey Goose brand. A brand story that every marketer should pay attention to. So today’s episode is all about the Goose, I’m calling it…

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Struggling for an idea? Just make it up. The story of premium vodka and Grey Goose.

This is kind of wild.

Rewind back to the 90’s and the vodka landscape was dominated by Russian brands and Russian stories. It makes sense. The drink is from Russia.

But that doesn’t mean it HAS to be.

Sidney Frank is the marketing genius behind the Grey Goose brand. He saw the clear liquid category taking off, and noticed there was no ultra-premium vodka. Why did whiskey and cognac have high-end offerings, but vodka was left as a mass-market commodity?

Choose your own adventure - a French vodka.

Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dom Perignon. All these beautiful luxury brands had one thing in common - they hailed from the land of the croissant. And in the minds of American consumers, France was already synonymous with luxury. So Frank set out to leverage that.

Even though the locality has no association with vodka or a history of distilling the spirit, Frank partnered with a Cognac cellar master who understood high-end spirits craftsmanship. They made the vodka with French winter wheat and distilled it in the Cognac region to drive the narrative of quality and sophistication (even tho it was completely made up BS).

A top-shelf bottle (literally)

In bars, all the most expensive stuff sits high on the shelf. Frank had the genius idea to package the vodka in a tall, slimline bottle. Not only did it provide a visual contrast to the squat, round mainstream bottles, but it was so tall that it literally did not fit on a normal shelf. Therefore forcing it to become a top shelf beverage.

And the overall packaging design was crucial to evoke ‘luxury’.

At the time, all vodka bottles were using clear glass. The designer suggested a frosted glass finish, giving the bottle a completely different look and feel to everything else.

Price is the quickest communicator of luxury

This is where the rubber really hits the road when we talk about marketing and the “4 P’s”. PRICE!

They went against all conventional logic and priced Grey Goose at double the most premium competitor. Seems like a gamble, but Frank understood the aspirational consumer and the psychology of perceived value.

Ultimately, in the mix of beverage options, Grey Goose sat comfortably under other unattainable price points of high-end whiskey or wine. But it had all the jazz and perception of these high-end drinks, so for those wanting to project an image, it seemed like a bargain.

The art of leverage

Early on, they entered every single competition for “best tasting vodka”. In 1998, the Beverage Testing Institute named Grey Goose “The #1 Tasting Vodka in the World” and they were off. They leverage this badge in every bit of marketing communication to help drive the story and position Grey Goose as the best luxury vodka brand.

You can bang on about how good your product is all day long, but if someone else says it, it makes the world of difference.

A perfect storm

I’m sure this story is oversimplified and there were a million other factors to it’s success, but these initial decisions and strategic direction outweigh almost any other tactic that you can implement down the track.

Seven years after launching, Frank sold the brand to Bacardi for an eye-water $2 billion in cash. They were selling fewer than two million cases a year at that time - a fraction of the volume of brands like Smirnoff. But what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in brand equity, which is ultimately what the acquirer was willing to pay top dollar for.

OK but so what?

If you ever feel like all the good ideas are taken, spare a moment to think about this story again. Remember that most of what made the brand successful was simply made up - forced to life through creativity and sheer will.

Here’s a couple of takeaway ideas for ya

1. Borrow equity from other categories: Vodka was cheap, French stuff was expensive, slap them together and make expensive vodka. You can do this in almost any category

2. Craft your narrative, then find proof points: Figure out what you wanna say, then go and get someone else to qualify it for you. Entering awards can seem like a wank and an endless waste of time, but if you’re clear on how you will leverage it, then it’s worth every cent.

3. Create the gap: Ultra-premium, super cost efficient, maybe there’s a gap in the happy middle? The reality is that big markets can handle multiple tiers and just because products already exist, doesn’t mean every bit of demand is filled.

    

Do you have a legacy brand story you wanna share? Just reply and let me know - I love doing these deep dives into history!

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