ABSOLUT SAD

AdAge reports on Absolut's new campaign - the old iconic bottle campaign is dead and buried now after a 28 year run. Compare the old with the new.

Fine, so the bottle idea was gathering moss, not to mentioned it was getting watered down to death after it became a running art gag with Absolut various artists, and the absolut cities bored me to tears though I'm sure both spin-offs looked great in a marketing plan. "We'll get that arty-farty air!" "We'll position ourselves as a suave globetrotter!"

Well now we say bye-bye to "perfection", and hello to "ideal". And that's where we run headfirst into trouble, In an Absolut ideal world cops and protesters settle their differences with pillow-fights. Cute. Times Square is a fine art gallery - huh? And men are pregnant. What!?

OK, lets put aside the fact that pregnancy in spirit ads seems questionable at best, what made you guys think that I'd wanna give up my superpowers of creating little humans in my belly? I don't. In an ideal world, my boobs would bounce back, stretch-marks wouldn't exist, the first months of nursing wouldn't be so excruciatingly painful and I'd end up with a better looking body at the end of it - but I'm not in the least bit interested in giving up my super-powers to men thank you very much. In an ideal world my entire career would not be affected by my theoretical possibility of becoming a mother (not all women spawn, neither do all men) thanks - which is probably what they wan't to say somewhere in there but fail.

In an ideal world vodkas would not cause hangovers, computers would never ever crash, long and boring cross atlantic flights would be replaced with one second in a teleporter (sans fly!), cars would drive themselves and run on Absolut hangover breath... And brilliant old campaigns would be replaced with even more brilliant new campaigns. Shame it's not an ideal world, innit?

Recent Absolut commercials: Absolut Vodka - The Absolute, Absolut Vodka - The Absolute - 2,
Absolut Ruby Red and Absolut - Mix it up

And for the heck of it, since it's the last chance really - our own Absolut spoof in .pdf form.

More mentions of Absolut in the archives: Absolut bad idea bad news in Germany, Absolut death (spec ads)