SpaceTM's Mark Gets Drunk on Information

Alcohol brands are some of the most evocative and expensively maintained in the world, so to see the design on this Tesco Value Vodka bottle stripped down to almost nothing but the basic legal information, initially shocked me.

Should drinking alcohol be allowed to be so raw and utilitarian? Had the world really come to this?

Looking at the branding of the bottles around it, I realised I needed to ask the opposite. Should the reality of alcohol be hidden by a gloss of overblown, marketed mis-direction?

Does drinking vodka really turn you into that cool-hunter who has knowledge of cutting-edge bars hidden away in the new Eastern Block where predatory supermodels – unable to resist the signal of how desirable your drink makes you – stalk you around the dancefloor?

Do you buy rum because you want to be transported to that throbbing bar in Cuba, surrounded by your ethnically-diverse (yet non-threatening) group of Gap-wearing friends?

Tesco Value Vodka has a thrilling honesty. I found out more about vodka in those few seconds of label lusting than I have ever done during any imaginary travels to the Eastern Block.

I found out that a bottle holds 70cl and the liquid it contains has 37.5% alcohol in it. I found out that a standard UK 25ml measure holds 0.9 of a unit and that men should drink no more than four of these daily and women no more than three. None at all if they are pregnant. And that a bottle contains 23.3 units – a whole week's worth for a man.

It is also suitable for vegetarians.

Using the-mathematics-of-drinking as branding feels modern. Knowledge-as-image feels exciting. At the same time it gives the purchaser the option of informed responsibility. Not the empty promise of scenarios that will never happen.

This is a cutting-edge way to sell alcohol, with the potential to be a classic. One, I fear, that will never be realised. The shelf sticker proclaimed it discontinued, perhaps halted by people who shared my initial shocked reaction and failed to look further. Knowledge is power and knowledge as branding is powerful branding.