Belvedere Vodka Under Fire For Rape Ad

Belvedere Vodka really stepped over the line according to a large number of their Facebook following. The luxury vodka maker posted a controversial ad to its Facebook page on Saturday. The image depicted a woman looking completely freaked out while a man grabs her from behind. The text says “Unlike some people, Belvedere always goes down smoothly”

Immediately after the company posted the ad, bloggers, pundits, fans and customers went completely crazy. They had nothing nice to say about a company they believed was making a joke out of sexual assault.

Amy Tennery of Jane Dough wrote,

“This is the most awful piece of promotional material I’ve seen published in the last several months, if not years,”

Business Insider called the image, “disgusting.”

It seems that it isn’t even enough that Belevedere had the ad pulled from Facebook and has issued several very strongly worded apologies. The backlash is continuing unabated.

Fans reactions are similar to these.

One Twitter user reacted to apology,

“FAIL. Never touching your product ever again.”

One fan of their Facebook page had this to say,

“Belvedere Vodka, your apology is insufficient as it does not accept responsibility for promoting rape-culture,”

Forbes Magazine, one of the most authoritative business journals on the planet said easily,

“If you find yourself rushing to take down an ad that could be interpreted as making light of rape, you’re doing internet marketing wrong.”

This is the ad that the company put on Facebook. We are interested in hearing what you think about it!