Competitive Intelligence

Vodka Brawling: Grey Goose VS. Belvedere

Two of the nation's leading luxury vodkas - Grey Goose and Belvedere - are in a barroom brawl over an advertising campaign. Here's an excerpt from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

"At issue are ads for the French vodka Grey Goose. In the ads, Grey Goose calls itself the world's best-tasting vodka, based on the results of a 1998 taste test by the Beverage Testing Institute. The ads tout Grey Goose's winning score of 96 and list the scores of 31 competing vodkas. Among the brands that scored worse than Grey Goose is Belvedere, the Polish vodka that pioneered the luxury category in 1996. Belvedere scored a 74 in the 1998 test, ranking it near the bottom of the pack. The institute is an independent company in Chicago that conducts and publishes reviews of beer, wine and spirits. Since that 1998 taste test, Belvedere has performed significantly better in two other taste tests by the same organization, posting scores of 90 and 91. Given those higher scores, Belvedere argues, it's not fair for Grey Goose to keep printing the results of its poor showing in 1998. Belvedere took its case to an industry arbitrator, the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of the Better Business Bureaus. That group agreed that Grey Goose should stop running its ads. So did the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), another industry referee. But Grey Goose said it won't abide by the nonbinding decisions of those agencies."

Now, I'm not much of a vodka drinker - I prefer beer myself - but my bet is this ends up in court. The real question is whether Grey Goose should re-submit their product for comparison - which they have not since their 1998 win... and really have no interest in doing so and risk a loss of the earlier rating. Belvedere's been damaged by the ads certainly. But, if the 1996 Yankees won the World Series, should they not be able to cite that championship benchmark? Is it not true that Grey Goose won in 1998 and if they're citing that date in the ads, should Belvedere be able to make them cease and desist?

- Arik