Olive Garden Says It Did Not Cancel Ads on Letterman Show

From the NYtimes:

The Olive Garden restaurant chain may not have been happy with David Letterman’s jokes about Gov. Sarah Palin and her family, but no order was issued to pull commercials from Mr. Letterman’s show, a spokesman for the company said Thursday.

Rich Jeffers, the spokesman, said Olive Garden was attempting to counter what he called “erroneous information out there,” which he said came from the website Politico. The site posted a report by Andy Barr on Thursday saying that the restaurant was “cancelling all its scheduled ads” on Mr. Letterman’s show for the rest of the year.

Mr. Jeffers said in a telephone interview that no such cancellation decision had been made and that the company’s schedule of commercials in the show had simply expired “earlier this month.”

The Politico report said it had obtained the information about the cancellation from a “Letterman critic” who received a letter from Olive Garden that apologized if Mr. Letterman’s “mistake” had left “a bad impression of Olive Garden.” The letter as quoted by Politico did not say the company was pulling ads.

But the website then quoted an unnamed Olive Garden spokesman saying that the company had canceled its remaining schedule of commercials on the show.

Mr. Jeffers contradicted that and said there was no remaining schedule of commercials to cancel. “We pulled no ads,” he said. Asked if Olive Garden would buy new commercials in the Letterman show, Mr. Jeffers said, “There has been no decision along those lines yet.”

Mr. Jeffers provided an official company statement that said:

“Information reported today by Andy Barr of Politico regarding Olive Garden’s advertising on the Late Show with David Letterman was erroneous. No authorized spokesperson for the company confirmed the information in his report.

“The Olive Garden media schedule is planned months in advance. The schedule for Late Show with David Letterman was completed earlier this month. We take all guest concerns seriously. And, as always, we will factor those concerns in as we plan our advertising schedule in the future.”

Mr. Barr said in a telephone interview that he was “surprised with that statement” and that Politico is “continuing to report the story.”

 

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