There’s an interesting juxtaposition of news in today’s Orlando Sentinel. On one page is Sara Clarke’s story about the opening of Grupo Anderson’s Senor Frog’s on International Drive. On another page is an item regarding an apology from Joran van der Sloot for killing a Peruvian woman. Do you know the connection? And do you know how a Central Florida company figured into it?

Van der Sloot, a Dutchman, was (still is) a suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an American who vanished while vacationing in Aruba in 2005. At the time of the disappearance, which happened during spring break amid all the wild partying that college students are wont to do, reports emerged that Holloway had last been seen at Carlos’ n Charlie’s, another Grupo Anderson’s brand. Also at the time, Grupo Anderson’s was a client of Quantified Marketing Group, a Lake Mary company that dealt exclusively with marketing restaurants. That put Quantified’s owner, Aaron Allen, and his team into damage control mode.

“They’d been in business for 40 years,” Allen told me a few years ago, “and within four days they were in 40,000 publications.” Most of it was skewed to the negative. Allen’s company got Carlos’ n Charley’s management to open up as a place for the media that had converged on the resort town to use as a staging area. Along the way, they were able to communicate to the press that the establishment is actually a restaurant, not a bar, and that Holloway had in fact been seen after she had left the restaurant.

Holloway has not been found. Van der Sloot is still a suspect, and his latest confession isn’t likely to get him off the hook. Quantified disbanded a few years ago, but Allen still handles marketing for restaurants around the world, using Orlando as his jumping off point.

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