The Absolut vodka company has apologized for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.
The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states…
Absolut said the ad was designed for a Mexican audience and intended to recall “a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal.”
Uh, OK…
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Bad Behavior has blocked 5447 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Nice! I always wanted to live in Mexico and now it looks like I do!
It’s a booze ad..
Have a drink or two and watch it again.
Wait a second….. this ISN’T what it looks like?
Now I know what it feels like to be English circa Early 20th Century–aka—this is the shit you put up with as your empire crumbles within/from your slipping grasp.
aka==Bush is a disaster.
Ok and Captain Morgan is a good name for rum when he died from drinking himself to death. And then they say drink responsibly.
Spuds MacKenzie was a dog that went to parties with beer and woman lusted after him. Thne we find out its a she dog. Bud usage = Drunk Lesbian Bestiality. Ok yeah that was good ad campaigning.
Face it the booze makers hire ad people that already abuse their products.
They promote a toxic drug. Should we REALLY take them seriously?
Cursor_
Under this “ideal condition for Mexico” California and Texas would be filthy, impoverished and corrupt and Mexicans would be creeping across the border into Montana and Louisiana.
Mexico isn’t a disgusting craphole because thee is something wrong with the geography down there. Mexico is the way it is because it is run by Mexicans.
6,
What an enlightened opinion.
Mexico is NOT run by mexicans. It is run by the remnants of the conquering Spanish consquistadors and their henchmen in raping the land, the good Friars of the Catholic Church.
Good discussion topic==why is everywhere colonized by Spain a shithole, and everywhere colonized by everyone else very much better?
Eventually, yes, you have to discuss Franco.
Time it took for this post (about a vodka ad) to slam Bush: 4 posts.
Is this some weird twist of “6 Degrees of Separation” or what?
C’mon, guys… Talk about the ad.
#6 is spot on. The country is corrupt, lawless and yes a shit hole. They can’t even govern the land they have.
Sorry, but I don’t think ANYONE in the U.S. would boycott any alcohol.
#8, “Good discussion topic==why is everywhere colonized by Spain a shithole, and everywhere colonized by everyone else very much better?”
I have asked people this exact question. I think that the point has been made, though I can’t remember who I read it from first, that if you simply compare Spaniards and the English in the Americas, Spain was clearly here to simply gain resources and riches, while much of the English migration was to find a better place to live. Also, you have to compare the tradition of common law in England to whatever notion of rights (albeit rights only for fellow countrymen) existed in Spain. You’ll probably find that the two weren’t founded on equal footing.
Bobbo, once again you are proving your idiocy. Not run by Mexicans? What, is some foreign country ruling the place? No, the morons running the place were born and bred there, just because their ancestors immigrated from Spain several hundred years ago does not make them Mexicans. That would be like saying the US isn’t run by Americans because we aren’t Indians. Just as stupid and totally you.
Yes Spanish rule is worse, and French rule is worse than British rule in Africa. Property rights and the courts are probably a primary issue
Why get mad at Absolut for expressing common opinion?
#9–Mac Guy==no, this is not about degrees of seperation, but rather an insight into causation. If you think this thread if about Vodka advertising, then you have the insight of a clam–dumbstruck by the pretty colors on the map. If this was just about Vodka–why would there be any protest from “Americans?” And if there is protest==what kind of idiot leadership decisions might be driving the legitimate cause of that protest. Now, put those crayons down, and think just a bit.
#12–Sea Lawyer==yes, that’s a large part of it, but not dispositive. Look where England did go just for money–eg India, Hong Kong, etc. And spain did send settlers–or maybe just absentee landlords which also got the English in trouble when they did the same thing in Ireland??
#13–gquaglia==lighten up just a bit. Can’t you tell when a statement is made half in jest yet half seriously “for discussion?” What is it about saying it is run by “remnants” misses the point you screw up trying to make?===as in==yes, America is NOT RUN by Indians–we are run by the remnants of the English Colonizers, Just as Australia is run by the remnants of Englands criminal deportees, and MEXICO is run by the remnants of the Conquistadors.
Silly, indeed. Now, why is it again that the mestizo’s are being forced into slavery again to work those silver mines? And on what basis is the Mexican Social Classes stratified? I guess this is called being proud of your own history you don’t know, take a bow.
Silly ad. Mexicans don’t like the Colorado snow. Or any snow for that matter.
I consider this ad to be quite inflammatory against the US. If the map chosen had been a little further back in time… say… 1770… And Absolut ran a similar ad in the UK, how would we feel about that?
Again, pretty pissed off.
#15, that’s why you need to narrow your scope to the case of colonization of the Americas. I would probably say England’s activities in India to be more similar to Spain’s, and you can see a more similar result as well.
I don’t know that you can really make a comparison as far as Ireland is concerned since those are apples and oranges.
bobbo, your comments, while intending to cause a rise out of me, only show how narrow-minded you truly are. The Bush Administration is causing Mexicans to view the southwestern portion of the United States as being inherently theirs?
No, you dolt, this sentiment has been around long before you or I were ever born. Apparently, in your case, this must’ve been yesterday.
It would have been equally wise for Absolut to run an ad in the South, featuring an all-white group of men drinking their vodka, being served by a black man?
Next they’re going to run an ad targeted at Germans, showing a map of Europe in 1943.
#20 – Funny, that analogy crossed my mind as well.
#18–Sea Lawyer==what is the case of India except that India has a stronger culture than Mexico==and the reason is it was colonized by England and Not Spain. How is that wrong? So, no, you don’t have to limit the analysis to the New World.
19–Mac Guy—what??? I thought you just wanted to talk about Vodka?? Short attention span to your own posts? Well, good, that’s progress==welcome aboard, everything is political or you ain’t thinkin. No, lets get out the “big crayons.”
Yes, the sentiment of the Mexico of old has long been in the mind of the “reconquistodors.” But its only become possible with the decision of the Bush Administration to NOT enforce border security and NOT enforce employer sanctions against the hiring of illegal aliens. That’s a few of the traitorous acts by our Chimp in Chief that gives the Mexicans a real shot at taking the SouthWest back====not by formal annexation, they don’t even want to do that. Just invade by birth and migration and pick up all the social benefits that would be lost by outright military action.
Last time I checked, the all white men in the South weren’t marching in the streets to bring slavery back===but the Mexicans are. So, you make two rather blithering dumb statements immediately dispatched.
Got any more?
That map should read 2015.
bobbo – So 12 million Hispanic immigrants just suddenly appeared in the last 7 years? Bush suddenly killed off border patrols? Wow, your hatred for Bush has you so blinded that you just can’t see your own crayons straight. Don’t worry, they’re next to the “safe scissors.”
No, Mr. Simpleton, illegal immigrants were here long before Bush as well. Our border with Mexico has been a porous one for decades (you know, that unit of time that extends before you were born?). It was only during the Bush Administration that anyone decided to make a big stink about it on the national level. Back in the 80s and 90s, the illegals had been crossing the border from Mexico into the US, but all we seemed to care about were Cubans and Haitians on rafts. Illegal immigration is not a Bush invention.
Now put down your Holly Hobby notebook and get your binky. It’s nap time for you.
Correction: 12 million illegal immigrants. No one really knows how many there are.
#6 – well said
pedro – Actually, I prefer beer over liquor, so my boycott is by default. 😉
#24–Mac Guy==loving the truth and having some historical perspective such that one can place responsibility does not equate to hating Bush, although, I suppose many folks might make that kind of equation.
I’m glad you admit Bush has done nothing for the last 7 years. Now, what does he get for that? Accolades? Or does he get off the hook because Clinton was just as guilty? Our issues are NOW and Monkeyboy is president NOW–you see the connection—NOW!!!
Though to be more accurate, many of the bracero programs of the past encouraged seasonal migration==back and forth==from Mexico to USA. It’s the worsening conditions in Mexico and the more welcoming conditions in USA initiated by Clinton and more than fairly implemented by BushCo that has turned the migration into an permanent occupation.
Now, if you want to maintain that Bush has nothing to do with our Border situation with Mexico and their ever more strident calls for “free trade”, drivers licenses, amnesty cities, free healthcare, trucks with no brakes on our highways and such, then, lets sit back and just admire the pretty colors on the map, and not do anything about it==politically speaking that is.
It wasn’t an apology as much as it was a “we’re sorry you feel that way”. thing. All in all, I’m not going to hold my breath for an Absolut ad showing a fully incorporated Soviet Union map. It’s a similarly offensive. And, I’m going to go out of my way to not use Absolut. Potato based vodkas are better anyways.
You might not be a Superpower if;
A vodka ad in a Mexican magazine causes your shorts to ride up.