Any Vodka drinkers here? Should we boycott Absolut?

[Hazcat]

Here's there new ad.



Mexico reconquers California? Absolut drinks to that!
The latest advertising campaign in Mexico from Swedish vodka maker Absolut promises to push all the right buttons south of the U.S. border, but it could ruffle a few feathers in El Norte.

 

The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA  and now running in Mexico, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an "Absolut" -- i.e., perfect -- world.

The U.S.-Mexico border lies where it was before the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California, as we now know it, was Mexican territory and known as Alta California.

Following the war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo saw the Mexican territories of Alta California and Santa Fé de Nuevo México ceded to the United States to become modern-day California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. (Texas actually split from Mexico several years earlier to form a breakaway republic, and was voluntarily annexed by the United States in 1846.)

The campaign taps into the national pride of Mexicans, according to Favio Ucedo, creative director of leading Latino advertising agency Grupo Gallegos in the U.S.

Ucedo, who is from Argentina, said: “Mexicans talk about how the Americans stole their land, so this is their way of reclaiming it. It’s very relevant and the Mexicans will love the idea.”

But he said that were the campaign to run in the United States, it might fall flat.

“Many people aren’t going to understand it here. Americans in the East and the North or in the center of the county -- I don’t know if they know much about the history.

“Probably Americans in Texas and California understand perfectly and I don’t know how they’d take it.”

Meanwhile, the campaign has been circulating on the blogs and generating strong responses from people north of the border.

“I find this ad deeply offensive, and needlessly divisive. I will now make a point of drinking other brands. And 'vodka and tonic' is my drink,” said one visitor, called New Yorker, on MexicoReporter.com.

Reader Paul Green goes into a discussion on the blog Gateway Pundit of whether the U.S. territories ever belonged to Mexico in the first place, and the News12 Long island site invited people to boycott Absolut, with one user, called LivingSmall, writing: “If you drink Absolut vodka, you can voice your approval or disapproval of this advertising campaign with your purchases. I know I will be switching to Grey Goose or Stoli and will never have another bottle of Absolut in my house.


Link http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2008/04/mexico-reconque.html

[ericire12]

Michelle Malkin has been doing some good coverage of this for a couple of days now:

http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/04/absolut-arrogance-and-the-advertising-agency-behind-the-reconquista-ad/

Its a pretty good read.

[ericire12]

BTW: Skyy has a much better taste and at a much lower price then Absolute

[Bill Stryker]

I'm a Scotch man myself.
But I do keep vodka on hand for friends. I will not buy any more Absolut.

[tombogan03884]

 VIVA FINLANDIA  F - - k absolut. Also, Stoly has a cool exhibition flight team flying MIG 17's what does absolut have besides bad spelling.   Actually I can't blame them for aiming a specific ad campaign at a specific audience, but since I think all those Illegals who are trying to take back Ca. should be deported or killed like any other invader, I still won't drink absolut. (Considering Ca. politics and politicians, maybe they deserve each other can you see Mexico keeping up with Ca. entitlements and it's one way to get rid of Pelosi !   Definitely a pox on both houses )

[Sponsor]

[gunman1911]

I don't drink any morer but if I did Absolut would be on mt S**T list for a very long time.But I gotta admit  Carta Blanca was some dam fine beer!

[twyacht]

No Comprende Senor  . Oh, I like Pinnacle or Ketel One, and in a pinch, good ol' Svedka, I don't think the Swedes want California.

[2HOW]

Yeah ., I saw that today . what a bunch of crap. OTOH they can have Kalifornia. 

[Big Frank]

I like Jim Beam bourbon, or any rum, mixed with almost anything, but if I drank vodka I'd try hand-made American Teton Glacier potato vodka http://www.glaciervodka.com/, one of the best in the world, or Chopin or Luksusowa from Poland. They're the only three potato vodkas you can get in the U.S. The other 99% is made out of grain, and that's not what real vodka should be. There are so many Mexicans in California already we should trade it for some land that isn't likely to fall off into the ocean during a quake. We get tropical vacation spots like Cancun, Cozumel, and Veracruz, they get crowded, crime filled places like Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco, etc.

[tombogan03884]

I like Jim Beam bourbon, or any rum, mixed with almost anything, but if I drank vodka I'd try hand-made American Teton Glacier potato vodka http://www.glaciervodka.com/, one of the best in the world, or Chopin or Luksusowa from Poland. They're the only three potato vodkas you can get in the U.S. The other 99% is made out of grain, and that's not what real vodka should be. There are so many Mexicans in California already we should trade it for some land that isn't likely to fall off into the ocean during a quake. We get tropical vacation spots like Cancun, Cozumel, and Veracruz, they get crowded, crime filled places like Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Francisco, etc.

I thought they had a law in Russia that to be called Vodka it had to be made with potato's? I saw something a while back, the "Traditional Vodka counties were having a fit in the EU because some Company in Great Britian was making it from sugar beets.