Advertisers: Take a Cue From Ketel One

Advertisers trying to market to recession-bruised consumers could take a cue from Ketel One vodka, suggests Seth Stevenson in Slate. Rather than playing Debbie Downer and addressing the recession with coupons—or ignoring it entirely à la Grey Goose’s glamorous yachting women—Stevenson says Ketel One has made “an effective and fully internalized response to the crisis.”

The ads—which feature dapper gentlemen playing poker at home or out at a cozy bar—allude to the recession without rubbing consumers’ faces in it. “It’s not a status evening,” the Ketel One brand director says of the spots, and Stevenson notes the shift from the flashy clubs portrayed in early-2000s liquor ads is savvy, particularly in a discretionary category like vodka: “It seems to signal the next, more evolved step in recession marketing.” (More advertising stories.)