come on y’all it’s time to get iced
Should the brand managers at Smirnoff be “holding their faces in their palms” or rejoicing over the amazing hand they’ve been dealt?
By now we all know about Bros Icing Bros, right? If not, learn about it here and here. (That was mainly for my mom.) It has turned the too sweet, too repulsive, and too wimpy beverage into an all too beautiful irony. And it’s more than the brand managers could have dreamed of.
The best part of it all, and the only reason it is sweeping the nation, is they didn’t dream of it. At least they deny doing so. While it does have a “suspicious amount of marketing architecture,” says BrandChannel, and per ad agency friends of Gawker, the meme is succeeding at “re-introducing the Smirnoff brand to an entirely new demographic in a new, insanely stupid way,” apparently it’s totally consumer-generated. It is a bit unrealistic to expect that Smirnoff itself would urge people to “try and buy the most disgusting flavored ice or a 24oz ice. Pineapple, mango, and grape are top of the list for the most gut wrenching, mind numbing, throw up in your mouth, Smirnoff ice flavors.” The Awl even caught up with a Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Diageo, parent company of Smirnoff, who denies any part of it.
OKAY. THANKS FOR YOUR TIME. YOU SWEAR YOU’RE NOT BEHIND THIS?
Yes. We were as surprised as everyone else.
So how good is this for Smirnoff? From a profit perspective, a quick search shows claims of “increasing sales” all over the web. Even the NYTimes is on board with such speculation. But we don’t have the numbers. And though we can see an uptick in Diageo’s share price since late May,
likely this fun little game has little to do with it. The same rep from Diageo says, ”that would require an awful lot of icing…It would have to be much bigger for us to notice anything in terms of sales.” Even the Village Voice took a survey of some of New York bodega’s, which claim little increase in sales.
But sales aside, this could be great for Smirnoff. It’s a classic example of a brand hijack - when the consuming public commandeers a brand and reshapes it. It happened to PBR, which we all know and love. It happened to Doc Martens, which used to be a gardening shoe for women. And it could happen to Smirnoff if the branding folks can play it right. Who knows, Smirnoff Ice may be the next PBR - equally as ubiquitous and ironic. While some believe that “the perceived disgusting nature of Smirnoff Ice as part of the gag offsets any brand-building campaign,” others think they could have embraced the “quasi-ironic enjoyment of their product” long ago. I’m so curious to see how they handle this, what they will make of this, and if and how they will be able to carefully adapt the Smirnoff brand to this. So far, by pretty much staying out if it and letting the bros do what they will, I think they’re doing it right.
