Laura Ingraham defends our values.  We will continue to defend Laura Ingraham.

Ace Hardware claimed that it did not pull advertising from Laura Ingraham's show as reported by Huffingtonpost.com, The Wrap.com and Medimatters.org.  John Venhuizen’s, Ace Hardware CEO, initial response (posted below) was confusing and appeared to be double speak.  He wrote “we do not currently have any plans to nationally advertise on Ingraham’s show.”  “Not having ANY plans to advertise” sounds a lot like Ace Hardware had stopped advertising on Laura’s show.  Mr. Venhuizen wrote “we did not pull advertising from the show.”  The two statements were inconsistent.

Florida Family Association was not satisfied with Ace Hardware’s initial response.  We wanted a clear understanding of Ace Hardware’s position regarding future advertising on Laura Ingraham’s show.   From late Saturday night until late Sunday afternoon David Caton, Florida Family Association President and John Venhuizen, Ace Hardware CEO, exchanged twelve emails during which David Caton repeatedly asked Mr. Venhuizen for more clarity to affirm a positive advertising policy toward Laura Ingraham’s show.   

Mr. Venhuizen responded:

We do NOT have Laura Ingraham’s Fox show on our ‘do not advertise’ list.  As of four days ago and as of four seconds ago — we have not modified any of our media plans, we have not pulled any advertising and we have no plans to do so.

We never specifically bought Lauras show and had no plans before or after this to do so.   We are large sponsors on Fox, particularly on the news programs.  Have been and will continue to do so.  I’ve asked our media buyers about Laura’s show (whom I know personally) and I don’t have a crystal clear answer for you because it’s not historically how we nor our Media agency buys media.

The Huff Post called someone in our care center and they answered as best they could, albeit very incomplete.

Florida Family Association has another email campaign that is targeting eighteen companies because of their alleged cancellation of advertising on Laura Ingraham’s show.  NONE of these other eighteen companies have responded to the thousands of emails that they have received.  However, Ace Hardware's CEO went to great lengths to resolve the issue..

Florida Family Association has removed Ace Hardware from the list of companies that have been alleged by HuffPost, TheWrap.com and Mediamatters.org as dropping Laura Ingraham’s show.  Florida Family Association will continue to challenge companies to resume advertising on the Ingraham Angle.

Thank you for supporting these email campaign.  Your support is making a difference.

Ace Hardware’s initial response to emails regarding reports that it pulled advertising from Laura Ingraham’s show:

Don’t believe everything you read in the press...

As you may know, there have been several media reports over the last two weeks about “The Ingraham Angle” host, Laura Ingraham, and her comment via Twitter regarding a student from Parkland, FL. There have been several reports about advertisers pulling ads from the show. Yesterday, Ace Hardware was mentioned in an article as one of those advertisers. I would like to provide some additional context and clarification.

We regularly review our national advertising strategy and media buys. Two national advertisements for Ace appeared during Ingraham’s show at the end of March as part of a larger media buy.

When we received inquiries through the Care Center about advertising on the program, we shared with customers that we do not currently have any plans to nationally advertise on Ingraham’s show. We did not “pull” advertising from the show. In addition, this does not impact our current planned media spend whether that is with Fox News or other networks.

As always, Ace Hardware respects the differing views of our customers and our retailers. We appreciate your feedback.