Penzeys Spices amps up the heat on Donald Trump impeachment with $92,000 Facebook ad

Penzeys Spices is throwing more than a dash of salt into the battle over impeaching President Donald Trump.

The Wauwatosa-based firm has spent $92,000 on a sponsored pro-impeachment post on Facebook, the website AXIOS reported Wednesday.

Bill Penzey, chief executive of the spice company and a noted critic of the president, wrote in the Oct. 3 post: "The president’s Ukraine scandal is the big one. I get that it can be hard to believe any scandal will stick, but this one is different. This one is going to show you, from its very beginning, our nation has been built up from its bedrock to be ready for any political party that would crown their leader king."

According to data compiled by Bully Pulpit Interactive, Penzeys' Facebook ad spend on impeachment was second behind President Donald Trump's campaign, which spent $729,000 in the Sept. 29-Oct. 5 period.

Penzeys spent more on impeachment ads than Democratic presidential candidates Tom Steyer ($86,000) and Elizabeth Warren ($20,000).

This isn't the first time Penzeys ad spending on Facebook has been counted as political. Since May 2018, the firm has spent nearly $2.4 million on "ads about social issues, elections or politics," according to Facebook Ad Library.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Penzey said: "At some point Facebook decided all of our ads are political. Anything that addresses values is political in their mind. So our belief that cooking is caring about others and the good things that happen when you care about others, that's a political belief."

Penzey said the idea for the post grew out of a "couple of emails" he sent to "our regular customers" talking about the current political issues.

"The overwhelming response to it made me realize I had to do a Facebook version of this," he said. "This one kind of caught the wind."

Penzey said the ad has been "hugely successful."

"I've placed a couple of hundred Facebook ads," he said. "This one has eclipsed our previous best ever."

Penzey hasn't been shy about sharing his political thoughts. In November 2016, he blasted then-President-elect Trump and his supporters, igniting a firestorm of criticism.

In an email to the company's mailing list, Penzey declared: "The open embrace of racism by the Republican Party in this election is now unleashing a wave of ugliness unseen in this country for decades."

In an Aug. 21 post in the wake of a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, he castigated the Republican Party and wrote: "Yes, today’s republicans are not yet 1943 Nazis, but no one honest is denying the parallels between the two parties. Today the only real debate is how far along the Nazi timeline republicans are."

On the firm's website, there's a recipe for Tsardust Nothing Burgers, a reference to Russia interfering with the 2016 election.

Wading into political controversy hasn't hurt business, he said.

"If you're a business and have a voice and people know your voice, now is a good time to use it," he said.