Posted on 04/05/2008 6:10:55 PM PDT by DogBarkTree
The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday 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. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.
But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans undergoing a border buildup and embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor.
More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on michellemalkin.com, a Web site operated by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Half-hearted disingenuous “apology” won’t cut it.
Cram it, clown.
You got that right.
B
U
M
P
Their Parent company Pernod just bought Absolut about 3 days ago. They must be flipping!
Withdrawal and apology are too late for me. Grey Goose, Skyy, Finlandia, Ketel, Chopin will be my choices for an adult beverage henceforth.
Related
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1996876/posts
IN Absolut’s blog linked from that thread, there are almost a thousand comments from p-od customers.
I did run a search. Noticing a different headline and source is YOUR friend.
I don’t care for Vodka, and Skyy does nicely for the few bloody mary’s I drink. I will however bid a fond farewell to Chivas Regal and Glenlivit though.
I live in CA and this ad that I guess was only showing in Mexico makes me mad. I love a good Martini but not with ABSOLUT anymore. Think if an American Oil Company did an ad like this with oil the outrage and of course they would have blamed it on Bush.
Of course the map of North America never looked as it is depicted, since in the period before Texan independence, Panama was still part of Mexico, and the US and Great Britain jointly occupied the Oregon Country.
Thank you fellow freepers, for shining the spotlight on the hating game that absonot is playing. How typical of these smug elitists, to push their anti-american crap on us, then when they are called on the carpet for it - typical liberal move.....two snaps and a retreat!!!!!!/Just Asking - seoul62.......
They should just apologize and shut up.
About that treaty... Time - 1848 - in the American SouthWest.
The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.
When the Mexican commissioners made advances for peace at the beginning of the year 1848, they were given terms almost as liberal as those offered them before Scott had stormed and occupied their capital.
By the treaty concluded at Guadalupe-Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, Mexico was required to cede California and New Mexico to the United States and to recognize the Rio Grande as the southern and western boundary of Texas. In return, the United States paid Mexico $15,000,000 cash and assumed some $3,250,000 more in claims of American citizens on the Mexican government.
Considering the facts that California was scarcely under Mexican control at all and might have been taken at any moment by Great Britain, France, or Russia; that New Mexico was still the almost undisturbed home of Indian tribes; that the land from the Nueces to the Rio Grande was almost a desert; and that the American troops were in possession of the Mexican capital, the terms offered Mexico were very generous.
Polk was urged by many to annex the whole country of Mexico to the United States, but he refused to consider such a proposal.
History is SUCH a bitc& in this things. BTW, the US paid Russia 7.2 Million in 1867 for Alaska.
Then why wasn't it in Spanish?
bttt
Half-dozen. Good one!
Too late, they already pissed me off. I am not buying their product ever again. .
Plus, I hear that this AMERICAN made vodka is really great
http://www.bendistillery.com/crater-lake-vodka.html
Made in Oregon.... good enough for me!!
Finlandia has been my preferred vodka brand for the last 6-7 yrs. now
Abslut can take their Vodka and their anti-American attitude and stick it where the sun don’t shine.
“Grey Goose, Skyy, Finlandia, Ketel, Chopin will be my choices for an adult beverage henceforth.”
Jack Daniel’s - Buy American...
You should try out Christiania. It’s imported from Norway, and distilled 6 times.
Kamchatka !-also doubles as paint thinner.
Thanks for the link. I like JD in the cold months and Vodka in the summer. I’ll try Crater Lake for sure.
No it won’t. They need to draw a new map with the US 100 miles south of the Rio Grande and give every American that was offended a free bottle with the map on it.
I wonder what they would do if they were marketing to Arabs? Make Israel part of Jordan or make it part of the Mediterranean Sea?
Your Saami map on the other hand I do understand. It may be offensive to some Scandanavians, but I doubt it and think it's pretty cool.
prisoner6
No problem boycotting this!
The MSM is so full of crap. A "half-dozen," huh?
If you do a google blog search there's easily over a hundred blogs that have entries on this story.
They still lie, even when it takes, literally, only five seconds to go to the google search bar, type in "absolut," then go to the "more" tab and hit "blogs."
Too late, Absolut. I will not buy your products under any circumstances.
they ran the ad only in Mexico? What they thought Americans were that ignorant we’d never see it?
they are only sorry they got caught.
But I get the impression that this particular individual did know what he was doing. Taking gratuitous shots at the United States is a very effective marketing ploy in a lot of places. Pushback is uncommon, or it has been for a very long time. What amuses me most about this particular incident is the surprise on so many people's parts that it happened at all. I even got the impression from the "apology" that the author didn't consider that anyone in the U.S. even had a right to be offended.
That sort of stuff sells a lot of newspapers and scholarly journals, but it doesn't sell a lot of vodka. From a marketing perspective it's a loser - the people who look at the ad and snicker still may or may not buy the product, but the people who look at it and are outraged very definitely will not. And the object is, after all, to sell more product.
Companies do occasionally wish to do something other than sell more product, and it turns out to be a rather expensive luxury. Benetton in particular seems to regard political activism as a corporate virtue and shock advertisement as a means to effect it. That's fine if the shareholders want to pay for it. But even Benetton makes a misstep now and then - a picture of an angelic white girl next to a black boy whose hair is made up to look like horns caused a furor when it was published, as did a picture of Ronald Reagan photoshopped to include AIDS sores. Most newspapers refused to print one of their advertisements consisting solely of crosses in a graveyard during the first Gulf War. There were a few too many of those in Europe to make that anything but blatant hypocrisy.
I don't know if it is the intention of Absolut's new holding company to pursue that line of endeavor - I suspect not. This was a blunder. A half-hearted and clearly uncomprehending "apology" hasn't helped. Their best hope is just to shut up and stop digging. And if it gets bad enough, and it might, to rename the product. That would not be a sign of a succesful advertising campaign...
“Glenlivet “
Awww mannnnnn, what about Gled Fiddich or the other single malts?
Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.
Excuse me—Texas kicked their a** in 1836—the US contributed little, and Texas certainly wasn’t a ‘Prize’ of the Mexican American War. In fact, this latest flap may lead to Texas taking over Mexico /sarc/ but possible in a heartbeat.
Joni Mitchell thanks you!
Yikes, the Rhinestone Cowboy is scary....
Yikes, the Rhinestone Cowboy is scary....does not make gentle on my mind.
This is a dissimulation. The map is patterned after the territorial boundaries of the period, but it is modernized and altered. At that period, the Oregon Territory extended north of the current Canadian border, and the whole northwest and midwest were still territories, and not part of the United States, per se.
Significantly, The northern border of California has been extended to make Oregon part of Mexico. I suppose it was a little joke of the author of this piece to push the border north in this way.
Is that really a correct 1830s map of Central America and South America?
The French company might want to think about lowering its offer after that ad.
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