Furelid explains how important the bottle design is for Absolut.
— Back when we launched Absolut Vodka in the US in 1979, the bottle played a very important part. We were an outlier in the industry both from a design perspective and a product perspective. Back then the vodka category was a very traditional one with tall bottles with labels in gold and red and we launched a chubby apothecary bottle with a screen print directly on the bottle in blue. Also, the vodka itself stood out with an, in general, smoother character that was made for elevating anything it mixes with. Now, when changing the bottle design, the vodka itself remains the same.
Tell us about your new design. What have you created?
— We’re obviously always asking ourselves how we can take Absolut Vodka one step further and into the future. When we started the process, we knew that it was important to reflect on our past, and especially our heritage. We asked ourselves, what makes our iconic bottle so popular? And most importantly, how can we continue to drive it forward? As part of our approach, we also wanted to showcase the craft and expertise that takes place locally to create our premium vodka — to show consumers the community and culture driving our brand forwards, says Furelid, continuing,
— We used this thinking to distill the design to its fundamental components, updating it to pay homage to our credentials — provenance, heritage, and authenticity. We were keen to capture our rich quality story and make that clearer on the bottle, signposting to what makes our vodka unique, and have of course also kept the most important design elements that make Absolut, Absolut. Additionally, we always see progress in things, including our recently launched annual end-of-year limited-edition, Absolut Voices. It’s a beautiful new glass structure made out of sound waves in a sapphire blue colour, containing around 80 % recycled glass.
