Down Under Distillery on Top

The international success of NZ’s 42BELOW vodka has dealt big brand owners “a hard lesson in what not to do when wooing a global consumer tribe of super groovers with money to burn.” 42BELOW has joined Grey Goose (France) and Ketel One (Holland) as an elite boutique label, favoured by bar tenders and drinkers in the know around the world. Founder Geoff Ross – a former Saatchi & Saatchi adman – attributes his company’s success to savvy, subversive advertising and the age-old use of word-of-mouth credibility. “If the big players work it out – and I don’t think they will – they’re not culturally set up to do this,” he says. “They can’t execute a slow-burn strategy. They need huge volumes tomorrow.”