'Escort Quality, Hooker Pricing' Billboard Is Not OK, Says Scott Stringer

If an offensive advertisement fails, and you apologize for the offensiveness of the ad, what's the next logical step for the ad company? For Wodka Vodka, the answer apparently is to try and offend someone else. IN VERY LARGE LETTERS.

The thinking behind the madness: If making fun of Jews doesn't work, choose a different victim.

How about, um, hookers? (And, y'know, everyone who would prefer not to read "HOOKER" on the drive home?)

Yeah.

In November, the company that runs ads for the Vodka business, put up a large billboard that read 'Christmas Quality, Hanukkah Pricing.'

After wonderful feedback, they took it down.

Apparently not content with the bad publicity, the company has a new sign up that is causing further outrage this week. This four-word sign reads: "Escort Quality, Hooker Pricing." Hm.

It was spotted in the Bronx this week over the Bruckner Expressway in Hunts Point. After the expected outrage, it was taken down.

But the drama is not over yet! Today, Manhattan Borough President and likely mayoral candidate Scott Stringer's office realized the same sign was spreading its hookers-are-cheap-like-our-vodka metaphor to drivers on the West Side Highway in Manhattan near 135th Street.

Stringer sent a letter today to the Miami Marketing Group, the company responsible for the sign, asking for its immediate removal. (The company's president Brian Gordon told the Daily News, "Listen, if it's offensive it's because the topic is offensive to people and we understand that").

"This is a deeply offensive and highly inappropriate slogan to post in a public place, and it recalls an earlier, equally offensive slogan you posted on a Manhattan billboard referring to a vodka with with 'Christmas Quality, Hanukkah Pricing,' Stringer wrote in the letter to Mr. Gordon, which the borough president's office sent out this afternoon.

"Please take this billboard down immediately and desist from any future advertising campaigns that use similarly offensive language," the letter said.

We've reached out to the company and will update if we hear back. As of around 5 p.m., Stringer's office said there's no reason to believe that the company would take down the sign.

[SamTLevin / @SamTLevin]

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