An Absolut vodka advertising campaign that ran in Mexico continued to generate intense reaction Saturday from Times readers and across the Internet.

By Saturday night, hundreds of comments had been posted on the La Plaza blog on latimes.com.

The ad was created by TeranTBWA agency and the vodka maker, which depicts what a map of North America might look like “In an Absolut world.”

The map shows the Mexican border extending, roughly, to its position in the 1800s before the Mexican-American War.


Back then, California was part of Mexican territory and was known as Alta California. The area eventually became U.S. territory.

An item posted last week on La Plaza generated positive and negative responses.

Some readers were offended and said they planned to boycott Absolut, while others said they liked the ad and vowed to purchase the product. Many weighed in on whether the ad was funny or stupid.

A company spokesman said the ad, which ran for about two months in Mexico and did not run in the United States, was never intended to be insulting to the U.S.