When Waldemar Behn bought Danzka vodka in 2013, Managing Director Rüdiger Behn liked almost everything he saw – the brand’s distinctive aluminium cocktail shaker bottle, the quality of the juice, a solid track record against powerful competitors, and its sheer Danishness. But there was one thing missing – the right communications platform.
Behn quickly realised that what made the brand unique was not being expressed in its advertising or marketing. In a “big pond of vodka”, fill to overflowing with new entrants and countless flavour expressions, such things mattered. What was Danzka’s USP, he asked? And how could that best be communicated?
To discover the answers, Rüdiger Behn approached Jacob Jensen Design Group, the acclaimed Danish industrial designer founded by Jacob Jensen in 1958 and world famous for its design work for Danish consumer technology firm Bang & Olufsen. Jensen, who passed away in 2015, won international renown for the brand’s minimal design language, with his work even shown as a solo exhibition dubbed Design for Sound at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Behn met Jacob Jensen Design Group CEO and Chief Designer Timothy Jacob Jensen. Impressed by the designer’s high ideals combined with a refreshingly down-to-earth nature, Behn commissioned the firm to “reconsider” the Danzka brand and to identify its roots. From there, together, they would build a new platform.
The answer came quickly – “it’s pure, it’s distinguished and it’s aesthetic”, recalls Behn. Those three key words and a two-year gestation period spawned not only a new communications campaign but the desire for a new super-premium expression – which eventually found voice as Danzka The Spirit.
The travel retail exclusive line extension retains the aluminium presentation (which Waldemar Behn dubs “the best travelling vodka” due to its lightness and unbreakability) but with a stylish difference. The minimalist black container features the words Danzka The Spirit at the top and Design by Jacob Jensen at the bottom.
It’s sleek, chic and cool. Danish cool. And very much in keeping with Jacob Jensen’s heritage, which embraces a converging of the ‘Less is more’ philosophy with the modernist school of ‘Form follows function’. One could, for example, easily imagine a bottle of Danzka The Spirit in a modern Danish townhouse, surrounded by Bang & Olufsen audio and television equipment and minimalist design and interiors.
But it’s not just about form. Content matters too, Rüdiger Behn insists. “And that’s correct because the consumer is buying the contents. But if you have somebody such as Jacob Jensen, it’s crystal-clear that he wouldn’t use his name on a bottle which contains bad-quality product. It’s raising the perception of the quality in both directions – of the contents and the packaging.”
The vodka therefore is a step up from the standard reference, made entirely from wheat (the original has a mixed-grain base) and bottled at 44% volume/88 proof. The new line will retail in duty free for around US$30/€30, around double the price point of the original line.
“To create a vodka that is better than the original brand and better than the competitors is not that easy,” says Behn. “There are lots of good vodkas around. I said ‘Let’s try to get it smoother than the original’.
“That was not an easy day for our Master Distiller,” he says with a laugh, remembering the daunting task he laid down. “But he went away, took it as a challenge and he made it.”
Jacob Jensen’s communication platform for Danzka was unveiled at May’s TFWA Asia Pacific exhibition in Singapore. It highlights the brand’s Danish roots, design and lifestyle. A new website (www.danzka.com) was unveiled earlier this year to support the campaign.
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“It’s a huge step for the Danzka vodka brand,” says Behn. “We have found the real, fitting positioning for this specific and unique brand, Danzka vodka. All the former owners perhaps did not take sufficient time to think about the brand deeply enough. We are getting very promising feedback from the trade and consumers so we think we’re on the right track.”
Don’t expect any flavour extensions though. “We won’t see any flavours,” Behn says firmly. “We are not a flavoured player, unlike the others. Yes, two years ago we added the Apple but for the next five years you won’t see any new flavour for Danzka vodka. The hype about this flavour game is over. If you look at the market, flavours are important in North America and that’s it. In all the other places of the world they [flavours] are shelf fillers and nothing else.”
Danzka The Spirit will be unveiled in Cannes at a traditional Danish ‘frokost’ in Cannes (H52, Green Village). What’s a frokost? “Come and taste!” replies Behn. “It’s a very typical Danish cold meal, it’s a great buffet with a lot of traditional Danish foodstuffs.”
And, one suspects, quite a lot of traditional Danish vodka with a distinctly modern spirit in every sense. “Hopefully from here we can play with this topic of Danish design and Danish atmosphere, of Danish lifestyle,” Rüdiger Behn concludes. “Now the brand has found its real emotional roots.”
