Oh, for the love of Pete.

For those who don’t live in Ontario, here’s the background: the Beer Store, a foreign-owned monopoly on beer sales (outside of the provincially regulated LCBO) is worried that public sentiment has turned against them and toward a more open market for alcohol sales. One of the proposals has been to allow booze in convenience stores, as in several other provinces. So this ad is what their marketing geniuses has produced. Not surprisingly, the predominant reaction to the ad has been strong criticism and even outright mocking.

I believe the technical term for this kind of flailing is “death throes”.