The ad appeared in Germany on social media, immediately taking advantage of a public relations misstep by leading pasta maker Barilla, when its family leader Guido Barilla said in an interview, “I would never do [a commercial] with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect, but because we don’t agree with them,” the company chairman told Italian radio Wednesday evening. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role." He added that if gays “like our pasta and our advertising, they’ll eat our pasta. If they don’t like it, then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand.”

Seizing the opportunity, a representative for Orca im Hafen, Bertolli's social-media agency in Germany, told the AdFreak column in Adweek, "We just wanted to spread the news that Bertolli welcomes everyone, especially those with an empty stomach."

In 2009, Bertolli also created a gay-friendly commercial for its Oven Baked Meals -- http://www.adrespect.org/common/adlibrary/adlibrarydetails.cfm?QID=4810&clientID=11064

On Twitter, a gay member of the Italian parliament, Alessandro Zan, tweeted: “You can’t mess around with consumers, including gay ones.”