Vodka brands showing support for LGBTQ rights is nothing new. Absolute has been doing it since the 1980s, Smirnoff showed support last year with its “Love Wins” bottles, and Diageo, Smirnoff’s parent company, has been recognized for several years running by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as a “Best Place to Work for LGBT Equality.”
Campari’s Skyy Vodka has joined the movement in Australia, most recently with its new Skyy Vodka Yyes packaging. The limited-edition new look touts same-sex marriage becoming legal there in December 2017, featuring an “engagement ring” in place of a pull-tab, along with a rainbow-clad Skyy logo and flag.
The bejeweled Skyy Yyes cans, including Skyy Yyes Soda and Squeezed Lime, are also launching in time for the 40th anniversary of Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, kicking off this Saturday, March 3.
Skyy’s move here is admittedly playful, but the vodka brand’s support for marriage equality is no joke. In the U.S., the San Francisco-born brand has heavily promoted marriage equality through its “Toast to Marriage” campaign with Freedom to Marry since 2014, and in Australia, the brand launched a #CheerstoEquality campaign with just.equal last February.
Skyy and Absolut – clear competitors – also teamed up last year with an ad supporting same-sex marriage in Australia. The ad stated, “The Skyy’s the Limit When We Have Absolut Equality.”
Cheers to that, indeed. “We do” wish these cans were available in the U.S. (despite their questionable pre-mixed liquid contents), but for Sydney drinkers, they shouldn’t be too hard to find.
