Olive Garden executives watch commercials, too.

The brand is particularly aware of Chili’s returning to TV advertising for the first time in three years, which CEO Rick Cardenas referred to as “that one bar and grill competitor that seems to be ramping up a little bit.” Still, the executive said Olive Garden remains one of the top brands in “share of voice.” While Chili’s messages center around its 3 for Me value platform, Olive Garden’s is focused on abundance—more food, value, and refills.

“Whatever we do is going to elevate brand equity. It’s not going to be a deep discount and it’s going to be simple to operate,” Cardenas said during Darden’s Q1 earnings call. “And if it means that our traffic is at the lower end of our guide, then it’s at the lower end of our guide. We’re not going to do things that are going to impact us in the long term just for short term.”

Never Ending Pasta Bowl, which returns Monday, is a big part of the marketing strategy. The LTO will be priced at $13.99, the same as last year. It’s $3 more than pre-COVID, further proof that this isn’t a discount play from Olive Garden.

The promotion works for the Italian chain in multiple ways. First, Q2 is a seasonally low period for the brand because of children coming back to school. Secondly, it helps the brand learn more about its digital opportunities. The chain’s eClub members received an invitation to access the Never Ending Pasta Bowl this week ahead of everyone else. Olive Garden believes this is a way to drive profitable, sustainable traffic toward restaurants as opposed to guests being temporarily drawn to deep discounts.

“We think we’re getting back to more seasonal patterns,” Cardenas explained. “We look at our traffic trends versus pre-COVID. They’re fairly consistent across the last four quarters across most of our brand—actually, in most of our segments. And so we believe what we’re doing is getting us to exactly where we were before without a bunch of marketing at maybe slightly lower traffic levels because of that marketing. And so we’re going to stick to what we’re doing and see if the patterns dramatically change. And if they do, we have levers to pull that aren’t necessarily deep discounts.” – Source: FSR.