The Public Relations Campaign
In the PR campaign, Jeff Smith headed an attack on Darden with a 300 slide powerpoint claiming the restaurants didn’t add enough salt to their pasta, and giving out too many breadsticks was a poor business decision. In addition to providing data to try and win over investors, Smith and Starboard took a universal approach appealing to people cooking at home.
The Simple PR Questions
Sometimes the easiest way to make a large impact is asking investors and customers a simple question or requesting a critique. In this case, Starboard Value asked its investors "If you Google 'How to cook pasta,' the first step of Pasta 101 is to salt the water. How does the largest Italian dining concept in the world not salt the water for pasta?" After disclosing the campaign, Olive Garden tried to discredit its findings, suggesting unlimited breadsticks and salad dressing represented “Italian Generosity.” However, the question about cooking pasta going viral. If you Google the above question, the quote pops up on various popular business websites, namely Mother Jones, Newsy, and other blogs. The critique resonated with investors, and with a follow through plan claiming changes to the infrastructure of the chains could save the company $114 million dollars, the investors loved the new approach.
