Absolut yanks Mexican advertising

Okay, I thought it was pretty funny when I saw it, but I guess Absolut Vodka, or rather, the PR flaks for Vin & Sprit, Absolut's Sweden-based parent company, apologized because a few groups thought it was in insulting. The ad only ran in Mexico, and I bet it was received pretty favorably there.

Frankly, like I said, I glanced at it a couple of days ago when someone forwarded it to me, laughed because I got the visual joke, maybe identifying with the target audience, going outside my own head, as it were, but I never thought or felt that I, as an American, was supposed to be so nationally outraged that I would actually stop buying Absolut vodka--not that I buy that much anyway; I don't usually drink vodka anyway, but for some reason I suddenly have a hankering for some.

Anyway, let's face it, the United States conquered the lower 48, and though the most red-blooded American would choke on the celery stalks in their Bloody Marys if they heard me say it, it's the damn truth. The United States was stronger and just took the land.

It wasn't that long ago, and there are other places in the world where there are demonstrations and civil unrest for the very thing that we did to Mexico. Uh, Tibet, for one. We did to Mexican lands what China has done in Tibet, but I don't hear anyone shouting, Free Southern California. Or New Mexico. Or Utah.

So, the ad was right on, as near as I could tell. It was yanked though, because in the end the dollar rules, though maybe not for that much longer, and the Swedish-based company that owns Absolut will soon be taken over by French-based Pernod Ricard SA, so maybe the U.S's nationalistic attitude may just suffer a few more hit.