Americans once more demonstrated that their sense of humor is right in step with the nutty political correctness that’s in vogue these days.
With right wing–inspired indignation, U.S. media recently persuaded Swedish vodka maker Absolut to pull ads it had run for a Mexican audience. Absolut’s ad campaigns have been demonstrating, tongue-in-cheek, what it would be like in a perfect (i.e., Absolut) world. Two typical, mostly innocuous ads said: "In an Absolut world, all your spam would be true" or "In an Absolut world, friends would get together more often."
Then, however, they overstepped “cute and clever” and stepped on a multitude of very sensitive toes when they showed that in an Absolut world, Mexico would take up a good part of North America. The company illustrated the concept with an early 19th century map in which Mexico included California, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and part of Wyoming.
The ad was seized upon as “treasonous,” feeding into the “reconquista” idea that Americans stole land from Mexico and Mexico wants it back. Right-wing bloggers, cable TV pundits, and other rabble rousers forced Absolut to back down and pull its ad.
Absolut might have ridden out the controversy if its response had not consisted of heavy handed “corporate-speak.” Absolut Vice President of Corporate Communications Paula Eriksson, answered the first barrage of complaints by saying that "As a global company," we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market. Obviously, this ad was run in Mexico, and not the U.S. — that ad might have been very different."
The “different perspective” crowd quickly showed what they thought of Absolut’s take on globalism by, among other things, threatening to boycott Absolut products. So, in an about-face, Eriksson apologized for the ad and withdrew it, saying, "In no way was the ad meant to offend or disparage, or advocate an altering of borders, lend support to any anti-American sentiment, or to reflect immigration issues."
If nothing else, Absolut’s experience should serve as a warning to other advertisers not to try to mix politics with consumer advertising.
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