Absolut goes there.

I've been hitting Absolut's new solidly sub-average campaign a lot lately, and was planning on giving those kreative kids at TBWA/Chiat Day a rest. Then, after a tip from "Fred Mercury," I found the above print ad that's apparently currently only running in Europe.
I thought exploiting Hurricane Katrina to sell vodka was bad—but at least in that case, the Swedish distiller was doing something to help the cause. Here, they've just giddily created a juvenile God image that has the effect of making fun of the climate crisis. Nice one, you buffoons. And in an "Absolut world," wouldn't the oceans be all Absolut vodka? And I wonder what, exactly, the making, distributing, and selling of Absolut does to help the planet other than make some of us pass out and forget about the situation for a few hours. Maybe you change agents should get some tips from the world's only green vodka.
(image via)

Save the world. Destroy your liver.

(puke) Green Marketing: Vodka 360, "the world's first eco-friendly vodka." Not to be confused with the planet-destroying 360 Vodka, "the world's first diamond-filtrated vodka."
According to an ugly-on-the-eyes print ad in last week's Time Out New York "Green" issue, Vodka 360's bottle is made from 85% recycled glass while its label is made with 100% post-consumer waste paper. Its tagline is: The Evolution of Vodka™.
The ad also states that the vodka is distilled four times and filtered five times, and that it is "distilled more energy efficiently."
Bypassing the obvious question—'You pathetic cause exploiters are fucking kidding, right?'—I have a secondary question: wouldn't it actually be, eh, more energy efficient to only distill and filter your eco-hooch, say, three times?
previously in Vodka:
1. V2. Get Bombed.
2. Let's get EFFEN drunk.
3. Staten Island needs to be distilled, like, five times by itself.
4. ABSOLUT KRAP.
5. XTRA! XTRA! Another Vodka Xactly What World Needs!
related on Gawker: Vodka Ad Wars.

ABSOLUT SEEKS TO SAVE BIG MONEY WITH TACKY DIRECT EMAIL PITCH TO "CREATIVE PEOPLE."

Wait, I'm a piss-poor, dead hack?
An email was sent out recently to "creative people" the world over from Absolut's digital agency in Sweden soliciting work for the next phase of their new, dubious Absolut World ad campaign. Here's the email text, including the nice misspelling of Warhol:
Hi,
I'm Mikael Zetterberg working as a planner at the digital agency Great Works in Stockholm.
One of our clients is ABSOLUT VODKA, which have a heritage of working together with creative people like Andy Warhool etc. At the moment we are doing a project with ABSOLUT where we are letting creative people pitch ideas in order to be part of the new brand campaign called In An ABSOLUT World.
We are a big fan of what you're doing and think you would really fit in to this project and continue the work of collaborating with the creative scene. If this sounds interesting please click on the attached link and be a part of this pitch.
All the best,
Mikael Zetterberg
Planner
Great Works
Here's the link, where they also write that they want you to be an "Exclusive Absolut Visionary."
What's the matter TBWA\Chiat\Day? You creative visionaries out of ideas already?
(thanks to Cassie Murdoch for the tip!)
UPDATE: Patric Blixt from Absolut responds in the comments.

Comparing the Pears.

Absolute Pears has the cooler bottle design, the ubiquitous ad campaign—including a slick slithering TV spot—and the trial-inviting copy line "The New Taste Of Temptation." What's Grey Goose's La Poire got going for it? One thing only: it doesn't taste like a combo of cough medicine and snake shit. Seriously, Absolut Pears is fucking awful; a very fake tasting "pear" flavor that completely overpowers the vodka. Very disappointing, considering how delicious Absolut Mandarin is. Grey Goose La Poire, however, is tasty; the essence of Anjou pears added to the vodka creates a nicely subtle flavor. Don't believe me? Two bar professionals recently confirmed my opinion about Absolut Pears: 1. The female bartender with the slight eastern European accent in the Jet Blue terminal at JFK airport. 2. A waitress at a pool hall outside of Tuscon, Arizona. Also, the archeress took one sip and almost ralphed.
previously in vodka:
1. V2. Get Bombed.
2. XTRA! XTRA!
3. Excuse Me While I Puke And Die.
4. Let's Get EFFEN Drunk.
5. ABSOLUT KRAP.
related on Gawker: Vodka Wars.

IN AN ABSOLUT WORLD, ABSOLUT'S ADVERTISING WOULDN'T BE SO BANAL.

Absolut Vodka ad from a recent US Weekly, a rag with a readership that's about 3/4s women.
(big sigh) A pregnant man...hot DAMN!!! How stunningly, trailblazingly, mindblowingly original! It's equally as imaginative as your Absolut World Los Angeles and New Orleans ads were! TBWA/Chiat Day? You guys need to rename your ad agency Yuri Gagarin! Go ahead, do it, do it NOW.
But let's push this concept even furrrther. First, we'll also make the man...barefoot! Second, we'll put a "KITCHEN BITCH" apron on him. And third, we'll make him Lenny Kravitz.
(scanned by Bill Green [thanks!] at MakeThe LogoBigger.)
In the name of "fairness," here's a :60 TV spot from the Absolut World campaign that, while also not original, is wonderfully directed/produced.)

ABSOLUT DICK.

(click ad for closer look)
To recap: In an Absolut world: lemons are clitorides (clitori?); everyone has a red carpet driveway; men get pregnant; God stops global warming with giant ice cubes; and I am Andy Warhol.
And...all men have eight-inch penises. But in an Absolut world, wouldn't all men (and women) be shitfaced on Absolut vodka all the time? Which means that most men would have perpetual whiskey dick, well-hung or not. Which means in an Absolut World, we'd all be singing Viva Fucking Viagra until our throats were as raw as our meat sticks.
(scanned from In Los Angeles Magazine)

The Fruit Of Absolut's Loins.

It's a new print ad in Absolut's banal (and sometimes baldly opportunistic) "In An Absolut World" campaign, this one for their lemon-flavored Citron vodka. Well, I'm going to bring it up here because you can bet your last bottle of precious hooch it was brought up at their ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day:

IT LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING VAGINA.

Or as a commenter noted: In An Absolut World, Pussy Tastes Like Lemons? Even as a subliminal ad, it licks. related: a review—Absolut Pears tastes like a mixture of cough medicine and snake piss.
(thanks to Spartus84 for the tip)

"Absolut New Orleans" effort smacks of absolute opportunism.

Sure sure. "100% of the Absolut profits" from the sale of Absolut New Orleans—"a fruity mango vodka with a spicy black pepper kick" (um, yuck? sounds worse than Absolut Pears.)—will be donated to Gulf region charities. How bout you donate 100% of the revenue from the product sales? And also the truckloads of media/production money you're throwing behind this "Making Ourselves Look Better" charade? That is what would happen in an absolute world. And that tagline? "One Spirit Brings Back Another?" Teardrops. Teardrops of gooey hooey.
(scanned from EW)
previous specious marketing:
1. the Shell game.
2. enviga. worse than confusing.
3. Jake the fake 13-year-old drunk.
4. welcome to the [fake] people_ready business.
5. Memorial Sloan-Kettering's fake cancer patients.

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: ABSOLUT POETRY.

Most copywriters (not me) think they're real writers. They're not. But one ad guy/gal got to write an opus for Absolut vodka. Read it and weep. (link)

China Ad Watch: Head & Shoulders.

(click ad) Viagra. Playboy. Lube. Absolut vodka. Guinness. The Volkswagen GTI. Even Ben Gay. Now that the People's Republic has fully embraced unbridled Capitalism, the Chinese people are joyously blowing their hard-earned Yuans on our non-essential immoral Western products. But Chinese advertising (click the above links for examples) just isn't quite there yet. However, this print execution for the dandruff shampoo, via Saatchi & Saatchi in Guangzhou, is not only comprehensible, but actually pretty funny. Scanned from a recent Archive.

V2. Get Bombed.

Vodka # 74,935 has been introduced to the US. It's V2 (that's so 2.0!). Yet another vodka from The Netherlands. What's the gimmick with this new hooch? It comes with caffeine and taurine already "infused." Red Bull can't be happy about that. Being a bit of a history buff, my problem with V2 is the name itself: the V2 was the world's first ballistic missile and was used by the Nazis at the tail-end of WWII to kill scores of British civilians.
previously in vodka:
1. XTRA! XTRA!
2. Excuse Me, While I Puke and Die.
3. Let's Get EFFEN Drunk.
4. Staten Island needs to distilled 5 times.
5. ABSOLUT KRAP.

update—Yes, today is War day on copyranter.

Russian Ad Watch: beer commercial banned for being too sexxxy.

(via) Redds is a disgusting fruit-flavored beer. This spot, by ad agency bazina.sass, had to be edited down to :20 for Russian federal TV, apparently because of the juicy vagina imagery, those two fruit balls, and the phallic ice penetrations. But! All advertising in post-Soviet Russia is SEX (nsfw)! Note: Absolut vodka is also quite intimate with the pussy fruit ad imagery.

Qualitative Vodka Taste Test Report.

Though their print ads continue their insipid run of idiocy, Ketel One's Citroen actually tastes pretty good, according to a field study conducted by the blog's contributing editor. Secondly, copyranter can safely report that, after extensive sampling by at least two sources, the new Absolut Pears tastes like snake shit—very unnatural and medicine-y.
previously in Ketel One ads:
1. "famous Dutch shrinks" returns zero Google matches.
2. My correspondence with Ketel One continues...
3. You don't have a mouth Ketel One phone kiosk...
4. Ketel One subliminal advertising.
5. An unsigned letter from a distillery in Holland.
related on Gawker: Vodka Wars.

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: ABSOLUT OPPORTUNISM.

Vodka will save sweet Mother Earth. Absolut has made it their mission to sell as many cases of hooch as possible via hand-wringing eco-consciousness. (link)

Vodka brand inartistically targets the rich 1% assholes.

(click ads, via via)
Polish hooch Ultimat (terrible name), which costs about twice as much as Absolut, launched this campaign last month. To justify that price point, NYC ad agency Amalgamated apparently pulled copy right from the marketing white paper for these fucking headlines. Poor Richie Rich doesn't get outside? Maybe he'll get pinched for insider trading and get fucked in the ass—in the yard—on Rikers Island. He's working on Christmas? Poor, poor partner. Fuck him and fuck this insulting, sexist campaign. Who wants to tape up their hands and go with me down to Wall Street and beat the fucking bejesus out of investment bankers? (Believe me iDouche, you'll be the one unconscious.)
Previous terrible vodka campaigns:
• Flirt • Svedka • Belvedere • and the worst, Ketel One.

ABSOLUT KRAP.

Absolut's advertising hasn't been even mildly interesting for years—the Swedish vodka seriously needs a fresh execution (I'll do it for a one-time fee of one million dollars, V&S Vin & Sprit AB. Hello?). But; this ad took the campaign from Blandsville to Shitburgh. It is trying so so so so so so so hard to be cool. So hard, it makes me physically ill.
Yeah, snake that guitar cord. More snaking! Let's try a couple of different thicknesses on the cord. Is that enough jewelry and piercings? Let's shoot him in 10 different dark shades of wifebeater and 6 different tightnesses. Also, 1, 2 and 3 days beard-growth. We'll do aviators, wrap-arounds, mirror lens. Make sure those tats are hot-lit!!!
Total cost of 2-week photo shoot: $13,687,239.57

...the post where copyranter became a lame music blog.

Track List:
Love Revolution
Tight Pants
Tighter Pants
Dark Sunglasses
Darker Sunglasses
My Guitar Is My Penis
Purpler Haze
Foxier Lady
Love Love Love Sex Sex Sex
It's Time For A Love Revolution (In My Tight Pants)
previously in Lenny Kravitz: Absolut Krap. related: Justin Timberlake's new recording ProspectivePussy/FuckMoans. somewhat related: Hendrix Electric Vodka. strongly related: don't like this post? SEND BETTER TIPS (copyranter(at)hotmail(dot)com)