Absolut Ad Campaign Backfires Horribly

When PDN took a look at TBWA's "In An Absolute World" ad campaign in our September 2007 issue, nothing about it seemed controversial. Here in the U.S., the ads have featured impressive digital photo composites by Stan Musilek (interviewed for our article), Eric Piasecki, Joe Baran and Vincent Dixon (whose work is seen above). Some of the ads featured sharp regional humor, for example showing a bike lane on the San Francisco Bay Bridge or a subway stop on Second Avenue in Manhattan.

There there's this one, created by Teran\TBWA in Mexico:

This ad showing a map of the old boundaries of Mexico surfaced online last week. It soon hit the conservative blogosphere, which (you know this pattern by now) exploded in an inferno of untempered rage. If you think you can stomach it, Michelle Malkin's blog has a thorough roundup of the commentary this ad has inspired.

My assessment: This is a pretty dim ad. Some of the people criticizing it sound racist. Since everybody looks bad here (and there's no photography in this one), let's move on to a new topic. We're expecting the Pulitzer Prize announcement pretty soon, which should put us in a better mood.