Playboy enters vodka market with cans featuring Andy Warhol’s bunny art

A new line of ready-to-drink vodka cocktails could test how well the Playboy brand can thrill young consumers.

Play Hard comes from Playboy Spirits, a joint venture formed in early 2022 between the beverage company Spirits Investment Partners (SIP) and PLBY Group, which controls the Playboy brand. The vodka seltzers come in four flavors and in packages featuring Andy Warhol’s bunny art created for Playboy in 1985. It marks the fourth booze offering from Playboy Spirits, which already sells tequila, whiskey and cognac under the ultra-premium Rare Hare moniker.

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While those products are extremely expensive (as much as $999 per bottle), the vodka drinks are aiming for more of a mass audience in the increasingly crowded canned cocktail market.

They arrive more than three years after Playboy last published a magazine; Playboy has since relaunched as an OnlyFans-like creator platform, a licensor, and as a lifestyle brand it says stands for individuality, self-expression and playfulness. Its one-time slogan—“entertainment for men”—has changed with the times to “pleasure for all.”

Playboy Spirits is counting on that brand equity—along with unique packaging and quality liquid—to cut through the clutter of the crowded RTD cocktail category, according to SIP CEO Marc Bushala. He said competitors in the space lack the product and packaging quality Play Hard will bring to market.

“While [the RTD market] is incredibly crowded, most of the liquid, I think, is really not good,” Bushala said. “I’ll be the first to say I’m not a big RTD drinker, but objectively, I think you get a lot of medicinal, artificial, cloying taste. So we thought, there’s definitely a route for better quality.

“And the branding and packaging, I would say almost universally, is terrible,” he continued. “There’s a few standouts, but even some of the market leaders … are still kind of blah from a packaging and branding standpoint. So I felt that we could have a much more interesting, compelling brand package and liquid. And if we didn't think that, we just would have not gotten into the game.”

According to Devon Belter, director of marketing for SIP and a former PLBY marketer, the Playboy brand resonates with consumers in their 20s and 30s who interpret the brand differently than their parents or grandparents might have. “I think the common thread is self-expression, individuality, and living bold, and also, not taking yourself so seriously,” Belter said.

The new drinks will be available at retailers in Miami and Orlando starting this month, with plans to expand to seven or eight additional markets in 2024, Bushala said. The company is separately at work on flavor profiles to support a launch in Asia.

Other iconic art from the Playboy vault—from Keith Haring and Peter Max—are set to accompany additional varieties of RTDs, Bushala said.

Asked about advertising plans, Bushala said Play Hard would look to connect to consumers through curated content across digital and social platforms. The brand will also seek engagement at festivals, concerts and other events. Strategic collaborations, including what Bushala described as a “unique and playful” sports platform, will be announced later this year.

Playboy Spirits in January announced it had raised $13 million in new funding.

The Rare Hare products demonstrated there was a way to approach products where “Playboy wasn’t the brand, but the hero behind the brand,” Bushala said. The Playboy branding on the whiskey is “quite discreet, and we could then dial up or dial down the Playboy association depending on the given market,” he said.