Tom H. C. Anderson - Next Gen Market Research

It’s Cinco de Mayo and as I wonder about Absolut sales I realize we’ll probably never really know - only Pernod knows… 

I wasn’t going to post about the “Absolut World” ad Campaign again, but since it is Cinco de mayo today I couldn’t resist checking in on it. As I expected the negative posts about the Ad run in Mexico are slowing. [i.e. There were only 13 posts on their site yesterday VS 26 posts last Sunday, and actually only 6 posts so far today.]

Last week I stopped by the local package store and asked if Absolut sales had been affected. I was told that one customer had actually brought the ad in and complained and given the owner numbers to call and protest, but nothing had happened.

I tried to get my hands on some actual sales data to see what impact if any the ‘fiasco’ had on sales here in the US. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in getting my hands on any sales level data. Alcohol sales data is notoriously bad anyway. This is partly due to the fact that our blue laws make the market so hard to track. In some states Nielsen is able to track sales in grocery stores or pharmacies using their scanner method. But there are huge holes where no data are available. In an attempt to create a business around these holes market researchers in the liquor industry rely on store audit data. However, this data is highly suspect as those conducting the store audits are rather sloppy. Because of this it would have been difficult for me to say with any certainty what the real effect on sales if any had been even with this data.

In any case, perhaps what would be more interesting would be to see how Absolut benefited from this in Mexico, or even in other countries. With Anti-American sentiment being so high these days it is interesting to ponder whether whatever marginal negative impact the ad blunder had here in the US was more than made up for abroad?

So I’m wondering how many Corona, how many Tequila and how many Absolut will be ordered today? What will be your choice?

-Tom