How An Entrepreneur Built A Brand Around the Deadliest Killing Weapon in the World

Monday, April 9, 2007 at 03:04pm by David Askaripour in Marketing

Pictured above, serial entrepreneur John Florey, confidently pours his newly released “Kalashnikov Vodka” into the shot glasses of two very beautiful — ahh.. hot! — models.

Florey has stepped off the beaten path of Vodka brands and took a huge risk by modeling his entire brand off of deadliest killing machine ever made: the AK-47 assault rifle.

From the start of his venture, Florey has faced an onslaught of attacks towards his marketing tact to build an alcoholic beverage around an assault rifle. And not just any gun.

The AK-47 is a popular gun widely used among terrorist groups and violent activists around the globe. There are currently over 100 million of these weapons in circulation.

So it’s no wonder why such criticism towards the drink would arise. But Foley, like many other ambitious and hungry entrepreneurs, sees opportunity where others see risk.

When Foley came up with the idea to start this new line of Vodka, he immediately sought out the inventor of the AK-47, Russian General Mikhail T Kalashnikov for his expert advise on the gun and to get into the mind of the person behind such a remarkably designed and time-enduring piece of machinery.

To appease his critics Foley made it clear that:

But, of course, Foley undoubtedly used the popularity of the gun and all the connotations that follow it, to push his brand out of the box and separate it from the other vodka brands that have flooded the market over the years.

Upon close examination of the above bottle in the picture, you can clearly see the bottle was built to resemble the shape of a bullet. And there was no holding back with the strength of this vodka, packing a military strength of 41 ABV (alcohol by volume) to bring it over the top of the traditional 40 proof that most vodkas adhere to — just another shrewd way to give his vodka that extra “ummff!”

I admire Foley for the risk that he took. He built a brand of vodka that — essentially — glorifies violence and death. But com’on, let’s be real, we love watching death, violence, and action. Who doesn’t like Sopranos? Who doesn’t like watching action packed movies with people getting blown up as the heroes prevail?

We live in a society — whether good or bad — where we get pleasure out of violence and action, as long as we aren’t participating in it and it’s something that we are watching on television (in a fictional setting).

So the question is: why not? Why not create a vodka brand that nicely fits into the culture of “what’s cool” and “what’s hip”? Florey created a “manly” brand that will attract all those “tough guys” or people that want to feel tough and drink the official military-grade vodka. Ingenious, if you ask me.

It takes a lot of guts to go down such a road. Guts that we should all be taking with our brands. Don’t position your brand to safely fall into the nice, snuggly, and soft hands of the status quo. Create a brand that’s going to rub people a certain way, defy the norms, and create new — possibly radical — positions in the minds of your customers.

It appears as though Foley’s bets are paying off as the brand attracted a healthy slew of investors and recently went public on the JDJL Market. The stock offering was so successful that the stock became totally oversubscribed and Foley “had to actually give money back.”

Watch out Absolute and Smirnoff, the troops are coming!

Florey has high hopes for his Kalashnikov brand. His boldness and confidence may catapult his brand beyond the pack. If he has it his way, soon people will be saying “ I went out last night and got Kalashed,” says Florey.

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