Aug 25, 2005

i've noticed these new commercials on TV for smirnoff ice... the crappy pseudo-booze drink. the spots feature these two comically-fake looking russian guys with just ridiculous accents. in the commercial i saw this morning, they say their russian village has a festival where everybody throws raspberries at each other -- the idea being to promote raspberry flavored smirnoff ice.

but wait... smirnoff ISN'T EVEN RUSSIAN! the company was originally a french brand that was sold to an american entrepeneur in the 50s. smirnoff vodka has long been made here in the u.s. smirnoff ice isn't even a vodka product and is basically a sweetened malt product that's probably brewed by miller or anheuser-busch. you could probably poll 1000 russians and not one would ever have heard of smirnoff ice. plus do they even grow raspberries in russia?

i know no one else in the entire world cares about this stuff, but for smirnoff to try to pass itself off as authentically russian is laughable.

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