GV Frnshd Studio, Lots of Light & Views!!!

Brandweek, July 17, 2000 by Theresa Howard

Though Manhattan apartments are often unavailable, unattainable or simply undeSirable, Aboslut Vodka is tempting those questing for cool digs with a unique outdoor effort that has even the most cynical New Yorkers doing the stop and gawk.

The studio apartment in fashionable Greenwich Village carries furnishings from fellow Swedish firm IKEA, but has one simple problem--the place is unliveable as it is a billboard dubbed "Absolut New York."

The billboard sits just above street level, enabling spectators to scour such details as the Absolut bottle-shaped floor plan, and life-size IKEA accessories popular with space-strapped urbanites. But the truth is in the details. Dishes, glassware and even Chinese take-out containers fill the space that stands 19-feet tall by 49-feet long. The "open house" runs through early December. The board is part of an outdoor campaign that also finds "Absolut Art Guys" dousing a billboard with a thousand coats of paint in Miami and Los Angeles. More recently," Absolut Migration" on New York's West Side Highway saw 6-foot tall birds standing atop an Absolut Mandrin billboard.

Program: Absolut Billboards

Marketer: Seagram Spirits & Wine, New York

Agencies: TBWA Chiat Day, New York (design); Atomic Props, Chicago (construction)

Key Players: Absolut: Jim Schleifer, mkting dir; TBWA: Richard Lewis, ww account dir; Megan Phyllis, acct exec; Jackie End, Bill Montgomery, art dirs; IKEA: Thomas Karlsson, interior designer