Applebee’s Pulls Ads From CNN After Now-Viral Split Screen During Russian Invasion Of Ukraine

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No more Bourbon Street steak or Oreo shakes during coverage of the war in Ukraine.

That’s the message from Applebee’s after CNN aired one of their ads in a bizarre side-by-side during their coverage of the air raid sirens sounding in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv amidst the Russian invasion.

The jarring placement of an Applebee’s ad featuring Zac Brown Band’s “Chicken Fried” alongside the war coverage left Twitter users scratching their heads and criticizing CNN for the seemingly-insensitive ad placement.

Well apparently Applebee’s wasn’t too pleased with the ad placement either, and has responded by pausing all of their advertising on CNN:

“We are deeply concerned about the situation in Ukraine. When we were made aware that our ad was placed in this manner, we immediately reached out to CNN to pause our advertising on their network. It never should have aired, and we are disappointed in the actions of the network.”

Now obviously Applebee’s likely placed this ad buy months in advance and had no idea that it would be aired in a side-by-side with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But now that they’re aware of it, they definitely don’t want it happening again.

And that’s not the only change coming to CNN’s news coverage: The network also announced that they have removed the picture-in-picture “squeezeback” ads from their coverage for the time being to prevent similar situations from arising with other advertisements.

Because apparently nobody wants ad placement during a Russian invasion.

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