Absolut Mexican Vodka Ad

What is the world coming to when Vodka is turning against you? The Los Angeles Times had a startling report about a new Absolut Vodka Ad. The LA times wrote that "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." I hate to say it, but perhaps a boycott of Absolut would be in order.

First and foremost, I don't want political or social commentary to come along with my liquor or my liqour ads. How about something typical, about it's smooth taste. But beyond this, I absolutely (pun intended any time that word is used in this article) object to the Swedish Vodka company's depiction of our country as belonging to Mexico. Maybe they have never heard of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the 1848 Mexican American war the treaty provided for the Mexican Cession, in which Mexico ceded 525,000 square miles to the United States in exchange for $15 million. In an absolute world ads that are as idiotic and sickening as this would not run.

Furthermore, Favio Ucedo is the creative director of the leading Latino advertising agency Grupo Gallegos in the U.S. He said that “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.” I don't care about what Mexicans talk about. Absolut should feel the reprecussions of this ad in America. They should not indulge Mexican fantasies of taking U.S. territory at the expense of offending Americans. Luckily these are grandiose delusions and nothing else. Though let us not forget about how Mexicans, who apparently hold this belief according to Uleco, are illegaly crossing our border into our territory every day. But then again, maybe we are inviting this type of ad by allowing our borders to be as open and porous as they are in the first place.

Moral of the story: Stop illegal immigration and drink Smirnoff. Tweet