ABSOLUT VODKA is absolutely something

# ABSOLUT VODKA is absolutely something[ | ]

Leem, soojeong

It has been raining for three days, so I couldn't help drinking last night. Then as I usually did, I made phone call to my friend and said that I was very lonely. As usual he was silent for a second and answered that he didn't know how lonely I was and he just thought that I had a lot of friends here and I enjoyed New York life well. - Yes..Yes..I've done, but I haven't done at all.- His words made me more lonely, so I regretted that I called him up. I had rather just keep talking with my glass, not with a person. I still don't know whether alcohol is better than my friend or he is better than it. It's not only me. Since modern society has become more atomized and individual, alcohol has been a good friend to many lonely people, warming up their heart and bodies and showing some hopeful fantasy. As Sigi Moreslinger, one of the TKNY members said in the New York Times " Things become like pats" So alcohol has become like a friend and sometimes even medicine. Following that reason, people want more specific and personal types of alcohol which they can call their own. Clearly the meaning of alcohol, the culture of drinking, and the publicity and design of alcoholic product have all been affected by society, based on new consumer's different life style and demands.

As John Berger said in The Ways of seeing, " Publicity is the culture of the consumer society and it propagates through images that society's belief in itself" Companies have to sell their own image to benefit real products. This theory can be applied to liquor markets as exactly the same way. The liquor companies focus more on their bottles design and advertisement to satisfy their consumers who have become more sophisticated. To get quick and strong responses from them, the products and images of alcohol always have to reflect what people currently want to have and how they use them. In modern society the young consumers market has grown up fast, so the companies have kept an eye on their demands. For that reason, an old delicate and too much decorated bottle was changed to crystal clear bottle with a aluminum lid and noble and boring slogan also was changed to direct and suggestive slang

Starting about five years ago, bottle design has become more emphasized by the liquor companies to attract people. When I go to liquor store I feel like being in a glass design gallery and I enraptured, looking at beautiful bottles.As a designer, I personally like Absolut Vodka very much. I like that taste of it, but I like the out figure of it more. Its design connotes another meaning of alcohol for the people in modern society. Several years ago, it won the prize at the product design award with the bottle shaped like a Ringer injection bottle, which is flask used in a hospital for intravenous. The bottle designer said that the alcohol's meaning is the same as the injection of Ringer for people in modern life.How is the injection of Ringer's solution the same as the drinking of alcohol? Up to now, alcohol already has played a part of the anesthesia to kill our body and mental pain. Just as we inject Ringer when we lose our energy, we drink alcohol to overcome our troubles, forgetting these problems for a while. It has caused many social problem also, but actually as the society has become more complicated, dense and anonymous, more people to find something to lean on, even the power of the alcohol, instead of the comfort with people or medicine. So people dare exaggerate the meaning of alcohol to even Ringer injection for survival. And also it is trend that the meaning of solution is laps of memory, not real solution of some problems

Alcohol and drinking have different meanings to every different generation and society. Obviously to young people, another meaning of drinking is fashion at their favorite bar, discotheque and dinner table. Therefore drinking style is effected by the trends and concepts of fashion. Three years ago I went a bar, and I saw the staff there, promoting the new drinks which were packed in a beaker like some scientific tools. It was very shocking, but it was natural. At that time the fashion trend was cyber and scientific because of the new coming millenium, so the alcohol package design was without doubt also affected by that concept. Sometimes the Oriental trend was popular, Western people felt exotic nostalgia drinking some hot sake in a mysterious Asian bottle. When Latin music and fashion style was popular, Tequila was a favorite drink for people. So the drink is also another expression of fashion.

Since new consumers take more seriously the design and image of a product instead of its quantity and price, companies have to always examine their target society in terms such as big issued news, economic conditions, trends, fashion, celebrity style, etc, in order to expand their market. As a side effect of that, we are categorized by what we drink as well. It is because what we drink represents our social level, status and even the situation we are involved with. Eventually as the markets rent to each other, consumers can taste a lot different types of beer, wine and hard liquor, enjoying the favorite design of bottles. This means that alcohol is no more just a formula only for drinking. Alcohol is a mirror which reflects how we were changed and how we will be changed, showing the different images, meaning and drinking style between the past and present.

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저도 한동안 병이랑 포스터를 종류별로 모아 보려고 줄기차게 들이켰더랬지요 :-) --SonDon

앗..그러시군요..그럼 언제 한번 링거주사 같이 맞으러 가시죠...-- Suitall 2004-8-14 12:43 am