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Absolut Vodka Appologizes for World Mexico

Controversial Map Ads Top 50 Drinking Trends, Alcohol Ads, and Fun With Beer in 2008 1 40 Mexicovations 2 40 Mexicovations 2 3 40 Mexicovations 3 4 40 Mexicovations 4 5 40 Mexicovations 5 6 40 Mexicovations 6 7 40 Mexicovations 7 8 40 Mexicovations 8 9 40 Mexicovations 9 10 40 Mexicovations 10 11
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Absolut Vodka launched a global campaign called “Absolut World,” and while we’ve featured some awesome ads from the campaign already, we haven’t yet shown you this controversial Mexican border ad which ran in Mexican magazines.

It features a skewed Mexican border, showing a huge chunk of the southern part of North America as part of Mexico. Some people love it, and some people hate it, as can be seen from the comments on Laura Martinez’ blog.


“!Que verguenza, Absolut! Shame on Absolut!” one person wrote. “Their PR Director will be hearing from this former customer, manana. It’s not even shaped like the bottle, for Pedro’s sake!”

“Wow, this post really brought the crazies out of the woodwork,” another said. “Take heart, white supremacists! I think what Absolut is saying is that, even if Mexico were to take back all her territory, English would still be the lingua franca of marketing and advertising. You won’t even have to ‘press 1’ for it.”

“Just the way ads are tailored to pump ‘USA rocks’ or any other ad for that matter, this is for a different demographic hence being published in Mexican magazine,” another poster commented.

“Now i know this is hard for some of you to understand but it’s an AD! Not a call for revolution, not kill the “white man” campaign, not any of those things. It was simply taking history and placing it in a different text for an AD!”

And on and on the posts go…

On a lighter note, he’s some less controversial Absolut advertising:

6,134 clicks • Published: Apr 4, 08 • References: and lauramartinez.wordpress
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Favorited by Jeremy Gutsche on Apr 16, 08
Eleanor on May 16, 08  0 Trends   2 Comments
I wonder if this was really a mistake on Absolut's part, or if they just thought stirring things up with a seeming gaffe would get them some great PR (in the form of advertsiing - along the lines of..any publicity is good publicity). Dr. Tantillo argues, at least, that the way they 'pulled' the ad when the campaign was actually already finished was done in order to bring more attention to the campaign and their brand: http://blog.marketingdoctor.tv/2008/04/08/marketing-101-absolut-controversy.aspx
Eleanor on May 16, 08  0 Trends   2 Comments