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)

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caffeinegoddess's picture

Caught this new spot last night:

I'm not really sure what it's saying about Absolut though. If we all drank Absolut we'd not use deadly weapons and only have pillow fights instead?

guime's picture

It's not sad. It's stupid. I'll never drink this shite again.

TDD's picture

Drinking Absolut causes hallucinations that one is using only pillows as weapons when rioting. It makes committing violent acts against others easy. I think.

TDD's picture

There are so many men who look like the man in the ad who are not pregnant. Change the man's pose, and you really do have an "Absolut World"

RLDavies's picture

Looks like the pillow riot would be just about as messy as the real thing to clean up afterwards...

Hygge's picture

Ads with pregnant men, I have seen them sooooooo often. This probably should be in the Badland section.

malkie66's picture

This would work for a beer campaign.

malkie66's picture

Oh my God! Look what I just found, campers. http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2346476&page=1

My Paediatrician wife says it's not a hoax although extremely rare.

Dabitch's picture


True Hygge, pregnant men are old. At least Saatchi had a point with their pregnant man.

taO's picture

You're right malkie66 :)
When Carlsberg introduced the plastic beer bottle
in Denmark, one of the outdoors said something like;
"A revolution in bar fights"

Dabitch's picture

Some say that the new Absolut ad is very similar to the pulled Xbox "shootout" ad and the Xbox water balloon fight ad.

....

Well, apart from it being uhm, not the same at all, then yeah. No , I'm kidding. I see the fighting similaraties but the base idea is different.

Prospero's picture

Still for some online campaigns Absolut are one of the coolest brands up there with Nike and any Crispin campaigns. It's almost like the web is totally separated from their cheesy TBWA stuff. They just won a bronze in Cannes for www.absolut.com/lomo

andromeda's picture

This is true, the Absolut web work is very good while the ads aremediocre at best.