FOLLOWING LAST year’s €5.6 billion acquisition of the Absolut Vodka brand by its parent, Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard hasn’t wasted much time in putting some promotional heft behind the brand.

This week Alexandre Ricard, scion of the French family that founded the eponymous spirit maker two generations ago and chief executive of its Irish operations, announced that Absolut was to become the title sponsor of the Dublin Fringe Festival.

The deal is for this year’s festival, which runs from September 5th to 20th, but Absolut has the option to extend the deal for a further two years.

Ricard revealed that his firm will be investing €700,000 this year to support the sponsorship.

That figure covers the financial commitment to the festival as well as all the associated marketing and advertising costs to ensure Absolut maximises the value of its sponsorship.

It’s quite a commitment for a man who admitted in an interview with this newspaper late last year that his favourite tipple is a Jameson (which is, of course, within his firm’s stable) and has even convinced his girlfriend to start drinking the Irish whiskey “in a long glass with ginger ale, a wedge of lime and lots of ice”.

The deal with the Fringe follows on from Absolut’s sponsorship of the Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and the visual art programme at this month’s Galway Arts Festival.

The programme for the Absolut Dublin Fringe Festival 2009 will be announced on August 12th, but the Ulster Bank Dublin Theatre Festival unveiled its programme this week. It runs from September 24th to October 11th with everything from Chekhov's Three Sistersto a nightly interactive installation that lights up Liberty Hall. And despite the travails of the banking world, there was no talk of the RBS subsidiary pulling its sponsorship.