August 13, 2008
When You're @ "Olive Garden", Even a Slut "Celeb Endorser" is "Family"
So, you're a highly successful marketing executive. You've managed to make your mid-priced, mediocre, imitation-Italian, chain restaurant food a household name around America. For FAMILIES.
In fact, your establishment's well known slogan is, "When you're here, you're family."
But then, but then--something bad happens. Somebody sorta well known for doing nothing of note repeatedly endorses your product. Problem is that somebody is known for being a sleazebag and a well-known likely incubator of communicable diseases, for taking her clothes off, for being a bimbo extraordinaire, and for being one of Hugh Hefner's silicone-valleyed reality TV concubines.
What do you do? Your national restaurant chain's reputation as a wholesome, family dining experience--the reputation you and other advertising execs worked so hard to build--could be down the drain in an instant. Worse, restaurant fans might become former fans, and they might make some connection with the filth and diseases this woman embodies and translate it to what they're eating. As in, "When this slut is here, her diseases and behavior are 'family', too."
So you have no choice but to desperately ignore this woman and make her go away. Well, actually, you do have a choice: to denounce her. But apparently, Olive Garden simply doesn't have the cojones to denounce this sleazebagette who shares Hugh Hefner's cojones, and they won't even denounce her stupid Playboy pictorial contest for Olive Garden waitresses.
Way to protect that "family" image, Olive Garden:
Kendra Wilkinson, a Playboy cover model, television star and one of Hugh Hefner's three live-in girlfriends, professes deep love for the Olive Garden Italian restaurant chain.The feeling isn't mutual.
To the consternation of Olive Garden's marketers, who have spent millions crafting the franchise's family-friendly image, the 23-year-old adult-entertainment star and aspiring real-estate mogul repeatedly uses her spotlight to rave about its midprice eateries. Ms. Wilkinson hoists Olive Garden doggie bags in the air and extols its chicken parmigiana. She once scandalized European diners by declaring the Olive Garden preferable to any restaurants in Italy.
Ms. Wilkinson, whose tan skin and blonde-white hair project classic California, isn't on the payroll. She is a rogue brand ambassador: a celebrity who is genuinely, publicly devoted to a product or service, even if he or she doesn't quite embody the values that the brand's managers may be trying to convey.
Executives at Olive Garden declined to discuss the uninvited spokesmodel. One official says the company has tried to walk a fine line with its response, maintaining the chain's wholesome image without alienating potential customers. "I don't feel comfortable talking about this...because it is a complicated issue for the brand."
Complicated? I think it's pretty simple. Why can't they just say this?:
Olive Garden is a family restaurant. We do not endorse the lifestyle embraced by Hugh Hefner and his harem of concubines. Frankly, we at Olive Garden think that it is time for this octegenarian child to grow up. We think the bimbos on his reality show, including the one who likes our food, are poor role models for the female employees and customers of Olive Garden.
But, of course, Olive Garden doesn't have the guts, because the restaurant might offend that key demographic of Playboy readers (for the articles, of course) and concubine centerfolds of the month. If the restaurant had the guts to publicize the message I wrote above, a lot of families would applaud.
But instead Olive Garden execs are remaining mum, as the peroxided, breast-implanted shenanigans continues:
Earlier this year, buoyed by her starring role on "The Girls Next Door," a highly rated reality show that follows the lives of Mr. Hefner's girlfriends, Ms. Wilkinson launched a modeling competition for attractive Olive Garden waitresses. The prize: a nude Playboy pictorial. Ms. Wilkinson took the contestants' photographs herself."Our position is that our team members as private citizens have freedom to participate," says Olive Garden spokesman Mara Frazier. "While we're not endorsing the initiative, we're not making choices for our employees." Olive Garden is a unit of Orlando, Fla.-based Darden Restaurants Inc., which also owns the Red Lobster seafood chain.
If the restaurant had even the slightest guts, it would instruct employees who participate in this, um, "competition" that they will be terminated.
But, again, Olive Garden simply doesn't have the guts. It does, though, have a lot of pasta and sauce it wants to pimp on families. . . and apparently the Hefner fan base.
Olive Garden . . . the New Hooters.
***
I've written about this ho-bag, Ms. Wilkinson, before. In August 2006, I wrote:
Playboy "model" (euphemism) and Hugh Hefner "girlfriend" (euphemism) Kendra Wilkinson is upset that Eminem spilled a bottle of water on her at a video shoot. We're definitely NOT fans of Eminem. But, hello? This woman who repeatedly flashes the camera on "The Girls Next Door" reality show is mad that a rap star poured water on her. You're a glorified whore. Don't be shocked--shocked!--when a rap star treats you like one.Live life like a wet t-shirt contestant, get treated like one.
Well, in two years, nothing has changed, except, again, that Olive Garden can't get up the nerve to give her the verbal bitch-slap she badly deserves.
Posted by Debbie at August 13, 2008 09:23 AM
Comments
where does it say anywhere that shes a slut? theres a distinct difference between posing nude and having sex with everyone.
Posted by: lolwut ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.debbieschlussel.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 13, 2008 10:05 AM
This is horrible!!!!, the Olive Garden is my all time favorite resturant. I just went there with my family for my 40th birthday.
Posted by: MarvinW at August 13, 2008 12:14 PM
Doesnt bother me. If it were Jenna Jameson, now that's a different story.
Posted by: RadicalRightWinger at August 13, 2008 03:52 PM
What diseases does this woman have? What proof is there? (Anyone remember the time some storage company auctioned off the contents of a storage cubicle rented by Paris Hilton and in those contents were prescription Herpes medication with her name on it?) I don't really care about who endorses this restaurant or any other unless it is someone who supports terrorism and/or other kinds of anti Americanism. When I go to a restaurant, my priorities are: 1) Is the food good? 2) is the food safe to eat? 3) Is the food affordable? 4) The owners do not support terrorism, etc from their profits.
Posted by: Ron Taylor at August 13, 2008 08:21 PM
Deb-
Someday, you'll come out of your shell and be able to really speak your mind !!!
:-)
Posted by: Shootist at August 14, 2008 12:37 PM
lolwut spewed the following:
where does it say anywhere that shes a slut? theres a distinct difference between posing nude and having sex with everyone.
Maybe you would like to explain to us naive individuals just what the difference is between taking you clothes off for money and having sex for money.
Seems like a distinction without a difference.Of course your mileage may vary.
Posted by: ScottyDog at August 14, 2008 03:16 PM
Maybe you would like to explain to us naive individuals just what the difference is between taking you clothes off for money and having sex for money.
Having sex for money makes you a whore. Taking your clothes off for money doesn't involve sex (last time I checked).
Posted by: lolwut at August 14, 2008 05:18 PM
If I hadn't read it here, I wouldn't even have known about it...and now that I do.. so what? Who cares where a celebrity bimbo eats? I like the food at Olive Garden.. it isn't real Italian but its darn tasty.
Now having said that I would like to bring up another related point.. would anyone feel better if Hef was married to his 3 bimbettes? Isn't marriage better than living in sin? Or would we think worse of him for actually doing the right thing, because in this case the right thing happens to be illegal? Food for thought indeed.
Posted by: cambriana at August 14, 2008 06:22 PM
Okay, so Olive Garden does what you want and issues that statement. What happens next? Hugh Hefner, furious at the insult to himself and his girlfriend, calls in the high powered lawyers who have no other employment but keeping him happy, and tells them to make things as nasty and expensive for OG as possible. OG has to spend millions defending itself from nuisance lawsuits which do not stop until, humiliated, OG has to apologize.
In the REAL world, of course, OG knows better than to get into that mess. They also know that their icy refusal to discuss the matter will be understood as the strongest possible disapproval by anyone with half a clue about how American business works today.
[ST: YES, YOU'RE RIGHT. NEVER EVER DO THE RIGHT THING--OR EXERCISE YOUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS--BECAUSE YOU MIGHT GET SUED. THANKS FOR THE MORALS LESSON, DUDE. DS]
Posted by: Steve T. at August 15, 2008 12:58 PM
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