August 27, 2025 • 39 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
Last week Cracker Barrel, known for their restaurant and country store with a Southern, down-home draw, decided to change their long-time logo removing the “old timer” leaning on a barrel, to reflect just the name “Cracker Barrel” against a mustard yellow background. The change was met with such backlash that President Trump even chimed in criticizing the change. Flash forward Wednesday the company announced they will be resorting back to their original logo. Why did the company change the logo in the first place? Scott Baradell, CEO of the marketing company Idea Grove, joined us to discuss the power of brand marketing and examples of companies that have changed their branding for better or worse!
Last week Cracker Barrel, known for their restaurant and country store with a Southern, down-home draw, decided to change their long-time logo removing the “old timer” leaning on a barrel, to reflect just the name “Cracker Barrel” against a mustard yellow background. The change was met with such backlash that President Trump even chimed in criticizing the change. Flash forward Wednesday the company announced they will be resorting back to their original logo. Why did the company change the logo in the first place? Scott Baradell, CEO of the marketing company Idea Grove, joined us to discuss the power of brand marketing and examples of companies that have changed their branding for better or worse!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm tell you basy
he fostons me radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you Dan. You know we are going to talk
about the cracker Barrel debate, and there's a lot going
on in there. It's not just about a name. It's
about a whole lot more than that. But first I
do have Dorian and Chelsea, and just in case she
wants to talk, mention or comment upon the previous topic,
(00:26):
I want to get to her before we get into
the new topic. That would make sense, right, So we'll
go with Doreen and Chelsea quickly.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Here, Hi Doreen, Hi Bradley Jay.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I always wanted to talk to you. I remember you
on the SM channel.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh wow, that's well.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thank you very much, and you have a very distinctive voice. Also,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
People think but I don't smoke.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
No, I always talk to Dan Ray and I always
talk to Morgan White.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Great, So what is it you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
You change the subject to the cracker barrel?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, you know you can go ahead.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
No, No, My opinion about that signs they lost money already.
They should have leave well enough alone.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Sometimes, Yes, that's right, that's a wise old saying. You
need to leave well enough alone. Sometimes. I'm sure that
they thought they could make more money if they changed it.
I mean, that has to be the reason.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
But they lost it on the stocks and bonds, didn't
they Yes, they lost it on the stock well hold
on stranger stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, there's this. Okay. I haven't thought about cracker barrel
maybe ever in my life, and now now I'm thinking
about it and talking about it, and they're famous. All
of a sudden, they're famous. So maybe this was a
genius move. I don't think they did it this way
on purpose, but it may be that they ended up
(02:05):
getting more famous because the idea of cracker barrel. It's
funny for me to even say it, the idea with you?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Now, Yeah, I agree with you that have you ever
been to a cracker barrel? Yes? I have? And not
the endover. I don't even know if it's still there.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
All right, okay, Doreen, Well, thanks for that. And we're
going to talk to our guests now, and he's gonna
he's gonna give us a marketing sort of angle on here.
Let's talk to Scott Scott Birodell and Scott is a CEO.
Thus the EEO of a marketing company called Idea Groove,
(02:48):
and he's going to talk about the power of brand
marketing and examples of companies that have changed their branding
for better or for worse, and perhaps the strategies behind
the is there are a lot of things we don't
think about it. Maybe now in the digital world, when
you're looking at stuff on your little phone, maybe things
work better than others. Maybe a plan one works better.
(03:10):
But here's the expert to talk all about that. First,
let's welcome Scott. How do you do Scott? Thanks for
being with.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Tell me about your company.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, it's called Idea Grow. We're based in Dallas, Texas,
but we have clients all over and we mostly work
with technology companies, but we work with all kinds and.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So branding and logos being part of branding is a
very important thing absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I mean, we do a lot of work with branding,
and you know, basically, the logo is meant to be
a visual shortcut to tell people who you are and
what you're about. And I think that's definitely what was
happening here when they tried the logo change, because they
were really trying to reduce the clutter you know, designers
hate clutter to begin with, and this was a logo
(03:59):
that was very big. You know, it had the guy,
it had the barrel, it had the words under Cracker Barrel,
it had a lot going on. It had the pendo being,
which that's what was behind it. So there's a lot
happening and which made it kind of old fashioned, and
of course nostalgia is what the brand's about. But ultimately
they decided they wanted to modernize and that younger people,
(04:19):
especially under forty, wanted stores that were less cluttered. Because
the restaurants and stores at Cracker Barrel are known for
just having a lot of stuff on the walls and
being kind of cluttered. The logos cluttered. They're just trying
to clean everything up and an all hell broke loose.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
What made them think that getting cleaned up would be better?
Do they do focus groups? You would always do a
focus group before making a change of this magnitude.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Correct, Well, they certainly should have. I think what I
found over the years is even bigger companies, you'd surprised
how cheap they are when it comes to doing the
market research that they need to do. Sometimes these cmos,
these you know, the marketing executives and the CEOs just
think they know best, and you know, I know my
custom word. I don't need to do the research. But
(05:03):
a lot of brands have really paid the price for
that kind of arrogance. I don't know what kind of
research they did here. They hired, they had, They paid
a bunch of money for three different marketing firms to
work on this, So I'm assuming some research was done,
but obviously it didn't come to the right conclusions.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
It's a tough thing because you have equity built up
in your logo and your brand, a lot of equity
in that logo, and you have to you have to
weigh out, okay, we we need to decide whether this
will hurt us or help us. Now, it's my understanding
that the company hadn't been doing that well for some time,
(05:39):
and they probably said, you know, we need to make
some more money, and we have to take a look
at ways to do that. And they probably said a
lot of our clientele getting a little older, we want
to appeal to a younger demo. Maybe some digital mobile
device friendly logo would be good. But there are a
(06:01):
couple of factors they didn't They didn't include and they're thinking,
can you talk about those? I have one, but I
want you to go first.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Well, now I'm to know, but you know I would say, well,
what they tried to, uh do exactly what you're saying.
It's true they had. The reason they shook things up
the way they did is because things have been going
downhill little bit and they their clientele is getting older.
We have to find younger people to start coming into
(06:29):
the restaurants. What they didn't factor in is to impact
the change would have on their existing clientele, because it's
cutting off your nose, despite your face if you do
something to get younger people in the store, but then
it alienates your core audience. And that's what they did.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
There's one big factor I don't think they that they
thought about, and I'm going to get to that after this.
We this is we like to take callers here. So
let's see what Theodore and Maryland can bring to this.
Say hello to Scott.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Oh and oh, mister Bradley, how are you. I've called
to you before a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Oh, I know I remember you, certainly.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I'll tell you my story and hoople millions here. I've
been a surly poundcake customer for years. But last year
when I bought a pound cake, or a year and a
half ago, they you opened the top, it's a cardboard
top and there's the cake for all the years. And
I'm seventy six that I bought Surly poundcake, which was good.
(07:29):
They you open a cardboard top and there's a thin
piece of paper on top of the cake. You pull
that back. That keeps it fresh when you close it.
I called the company and they had I guess it
was missus Field good. Oh, yeah, I'm glad you're calling.
And eventually it resulted in them giving me a seven
dollars check, which I sent back.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What was the complaint with the these pound cake that
made you call them? I'm not clear on that.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
When you opened the cardboard top and the paper a
thin piece of paper on top when you put when
you take a slice, then you put the thin piece
of paperback over the top. It keeps it fresh. Right now,
you open the car to take the card but off.
And they asked the cake nothing to keep it fresh?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So oh took away the plastic?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yes, And I sent them in it and said it's
things in this country sometimes changed, not for the best.
I have certain standards, and seven dollars is not enough
to have me by abandoned my standard. So I sent
the check back to them, and I haven't heard from
them now. You they got a honey breed, which is good.
But I love the poundcake, very good with ice cream.
(08:40):
And that's all they did, and I haven't bought one
in the last year and a half. They lost the customer.
And if anybody by this surily poundcake, you'll see it'll
get staled much faster.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Now, So here's the big question, Theodore from Maryland. Everybody's
got a price. What would they have to r for
you to make you love them again and continue to
buy Sarah Lely pound cake?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
And uh sing, Well, Bradley, I'm gonna tell you. I'll
tell you how much, Bradley, and I'll put I'll put
you to a research project. And this is the price, okay,
about fifteen twenty years ago. I'm reading USA today.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
God body, godcha, just give me the price.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Well, nine hundred and ninety eight dollars. But I'll tell
you the story, ran it quickly.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Guy.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Twenty years ago, he bought a box of X flax.
You know what that clack is, don't you? I do okay,
you know it makes you run a little bit, gets
out of constipation. He didn't like it. The X fact
costs him nine dollars ninety nine cents. He sent the
check back to the company that makes X slacks. Somebody
who heard him check for ninety nine thousand, ninety eight dollars.
(09:52):
And that's the check. And I've never found out whether
they caught the guy.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
All Right, the theater excellent, carl, and and we know
that your price is now about a thousand bucks. Then
you'd be happy again and we'll see what happens. I
would be a little miffed at seven bucks. How cheap
can you be? Anyway? Back to you school, back to
you spool.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
That's funny. Well, that reminds me there's so many brands
that take advantage of a legacy and a name and
they cheapen the product over time. And made me think
if things like Hostess cupcakes, Twinkies, these are products that
we were nostalgic about. People are a little older like us,
(10:33):
but but kids like this just taste like cardboard, and
then you taste it to day and it was like
it does it's not because we used to like cardboard.
It's because they've actually changed the product, and the product
is smaller, it doesn't have the same ingredients. But they're
just hoping that brand reputation will keep the sales going.
That's a dirty little trick that a lot of marketers play.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Okay, back to Cracker Barrel. I promise to tell you
the thing that they didn't consider. And I don't know
if this is widely known. Note maybe we only know
it after this Cracker Barrel thing. But in this political climate,
change is synonymous with woke, and that's what happened. Anything
(11:17):
away from there, precious old timey guy sitting at a
cracker barrel is perceived as woke, and whether it's true
or not, that's the perception, and that's why it became politicized.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Absolutely no, you're absolutely right. And one reason that happened,
particularly to Cracker Barrel is it's one of those brands
kind of like a hobby lobby or a Chick fil
A that's been kind of a political lightning rod for
a while. You know, you may or may not know that.
Back in the early nineties they got in big trouble
when they put out they actually have an official policy
(11:53):
that people needed to basically behave have normal heterosexual behavior,
and people who who were gay or gay in a
way that they didn't like how they behaved, they were
fired and it led to big lawsuits government action. There
were some racial things too in the nineties too, so
it was associated politically with extremely conservative views back then.
(12:19):
And then since the in the last five six years,
there's been a real change and they've wanted to be
a leader in promoting LGBTQ rights. They've they've been very
vocal about their DEI policies and things like that, and
so that had and then this was a brand where
conservatives had, you know, had said this is a nostalgic brand,
(12:43):
this is a conservative brand, and now suddenly it's a
DEI brand, it's a woke brand. So they were ready
to pounce when the logo change happened because there was
already these undercurrents going on out there.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I want to talk with you more, Scott. Right after
this on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's Night Side with Dany Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Bradley J for Dan on Night Side, I do love
a country store. About two hundred yards from where I
grew up. There was a store that was both post office,
country store and pinball arcade and gas station. Yes, the
post office was in that same place. There was a
small town. I love it. There was another one called
Caleb's Country Store. I love the creaking floors. No, but
(13:23):
I've never been to a cracker barrel. So if you'd
give me a shout at six one, seven thirty, tell
me what cracker barrels are like? Is it? Is it
like I? You know, the creaking floor old country store?
And also tell me if you liked the old logo
or you like the new one better. Have you seen them?
Do you really mind the new the new one? I
(13:44):
think the new one is ugly. The old one's okay,
the new one's just awful. I don't know what they
were thinking. Maybe it's compatible digital or something. I'm not sure. Uh,
Scott is a guest tonight, Scott Barradell CEO idea grow
of a marketing company, any idea where they chose that
(14:05):
super generic monstrosity that they did choose.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, I think they were trying to simplify things and
they did, you know, get down to just having the
text logo of the cracker barrel in the background is
in the shape of a barrel on its side. But
it is pretty plain. I have to have to agree.
Even though they were trying to strip it down and
that was the objective, they might have gone a little
bit too far.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, before the logo actually told a little story about
what the product was, hey, or the feeling is supposed
to have if you could, if the thing was big enough,
you could see there's an old timey guy sitting next
in an old timey porch with an old timey barrel,
and you're supposed to come and hang around the barrel
(14:50):
and chat. By the way, why do you know why
crackers came in a barrel?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I don't. I do know that they've been doing it
for a couple hundred years now, and they shipped them
in barrels, But I don't know the reason.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
To you, I read that there was just they are
too fragile to put in boxes that would get crushed,
so they were putting them in the barrel. And there
was soda crackers. That was the kind of crackers they were. Whatever.
I think, I know what's soda crackers are.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, that's like the I think. I think like your
basic uh, you know, saltines or soda crackers.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I think cracker so this isn't aside. I'm from the
count I am a country boy, so country am I
that you know we had on hot days for for supper.
First of all, saying supper is a country thing. Crackers
and milk. It was saltines crushed up in a bowl
with milk. That was supper in New Hamshot. Now you
(15:43):
were being a marketing guy, You've probably familiar with some
other instances of logo changes from big companies. I'm curious
if you could list a few of those and maybe
let us know how it turned out for them. Some
of them might have worked out, maybe maybe some didn't.
I do remember it's not only a logo change, but
a product's changed too, Like remember coke and then new coke?
(16:05):
Was it new Coke or something like that? Are you
you're probably not old enough to remember that.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
No, no, no, I am. You know I remember that,
And and some people think it was a conspiracy. Theorists
think they did it on purpose to you know that
basically at the time when the new Coke happened, that
you know, they obviously they changed the logo, They changed
the formula of coke to make it taste more like
pepsi and at the time, Pepsi was really gaining on Coke.
You know, it was the days of the Pepsi Challenge
(16:30):
and and really it was a very close competition at
the time, and New Coke tasted more like Pepsi. And
then there was such backlash that they went back and
came up with Coca Cola Classic, which the original version.
But it worked out for them because since then, ever
since then, Coke has really created real distance between itself
(16:53):
and Pepsi. You know, in terms of branding. That the
story that that I think is is recent that it's
not a logo change, but I think it's it's a
lot of parallels, is what happened with bud Light when
you talk about the whole woke thing, you know, bud Light,
and as I'm sure you know, you know, they were the
top deer brand in the country in terms of sales.
(17:14):
They partnered with a transgender influencer named Dylan Mulvaaney who
was an activist. He had visited the Biden White House
and things like that, and it led to this huge
backlash that since then the brand has has just gone
through the floor in terms of its sales.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And they were cognizant of what they were doing. They
knew they were going woke with that choice. On the
other hand, well, with Cracker Barrel, it's simply that any
change at this point now, any change is especially towards simplicity,
is progress or is any attempt of progress is automatically
considered woke.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Well let me let me tell you how there is
a similarity. The similarity that to me is it was
what people didn't realize. Even though bud Light was at
the time the top selling beer, just like Cracker Barrel,
they had been in a slow decline because just like
Cracker Barrel, they had a target customer or they had
(18:17):
a customer base that was getting older and older, and
they knew that it was only a matter of time
before they weren't numbering one anymore. And so just like
Cracker Barrel did the things it did with this logo
change and changing up their stores and all of that,
bud Light was reaching out to new types of you know, people,
(18:38):
to partner with a new marketing initiatives to try to
reach a younger audience, just like Cracker Barrel. So there
aren't those similarities you could So I don't think that
that ultimately bud Light did that for some political reasons.
I think they did it because they thought this is
a way to make other people who hadn't considered bud
Light consider it. But just like Cracker Barrel, what it
(19:00):
did is it alienated their core customer. And when you
alienate your core customer, you're really screwed. And that's why,
as you know, Cracker Barrel has reverse course. They're going
to keep the old logo. Who knows if they're going
to keep you know, the stores, or they're going to
go ahead with those changes. But all of these changes,
you should this is important. All of these changes they
(19:21):
were planning, not just the logo, but changing all of
the design of the stores. They're changing the menus to
add lighter fare and things like that. They're making all
these changes to appeal to younger audience. This whole, all
of these initiatives costs several hundred million dollars, a huge,
huge thing. And so what's going to be really interesting
(19:41):
to see is they've they've they've obviously reversed course on
the logo, what about all these other things are these planning,
As you said at the top, they were already in decline.
It's not like they can just go back to the
way things were because they had to make changes. Obviously,
what they did here they did in such a way
that it caused a backlash, but they gotta do something.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
In both cases, they seem like they threw the baby
out with the bathwater, Especially bud Light. That was I'm
trying to picture how it went in the boardroom, and
I'm gonna I don't want you to answer this before
the break. I want you to answer it after because
it'd probably be a good, solid, lengthy explanation. But I
want you to You mentioned earlier that companies were big.
(20:23):
Big companies were surprisingly cheap. I'm gonna ask you after this,
are good big companies also surprisingly dumb? Because it's pretty basic. Hey,
our entire base is people who go to football games,
people who tailgate, people who go do sports, cowboys, rodeo people.
(20:48):
Didn't they stop to think they're gonna really flip out
when we put when we go with what we're planning.
It's I guess that seems crazy that they would even
think that. They never even considered, boy, we're gonna lose
our base. So I like to ask you at the
other side of the break, in your experience with these companies.
Are you surprised at the at the inability to read
(21:12):
the room or read the situation on some of these
big companies. In a moment on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Continue to discuss the cracker barrel logo change and all
that that entails. And we're here with a CEO of
a marketing company called Idea Growth, good name, by the way,
don't change her, don't change your logo. They've Scott Barradella,
And I asked him, Hey, Scott, your dealings with these
big companies and these board rooms, having these meetings, you
(21:48):
are you struck by how the surprising mistakes they make
and you'd think they'd be smarter and they're not. Is
that the case?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Oh yeah, it happens all the time. You could argue
it happened. We're talking about a logo change that that
was a little more than that that really turned a
lot of people off. Was earlier this year was Jaguar,
you know, the British car brand.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
They took away the image of the Jaguar and just
had the script right.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, it's like where's the car? So you had this
assortment of people that I guess might be described as
woke in colorful outfits. And they had a logo that
a new logo that people weren't crazy about, and there
wasn't much talk about cars and it seemed to be
(22:40):
more about this kind of again. You know, Jaguar is
another brand that had been struggling for a while and
they were trying to come up with something fresh and new.
But you know, if you throw out, you know, the
things that you the legacy a lot of times, you know,
what do you have left if if you can't hang
(23:00):
on to the things about your brand that people like.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
How about some other failed logo changes?
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Oh, failed logo changes. Well, there's been a lot of
logos where you know, it's been made to someone had
a great idea and to so I just spend millions
of dollars on it. I don't think it was a
bad logo. But there's a lot of talk about when
(23:29):
Federal Express changed to FedEx because you know, literally, if
people have been calling Federal Express FedEx for years, they said, okay,
let's make the logo say FedEx instead of Federal Express.
And they designed it in such a way that there
was an little arrow pointing forward embedded within it. But
it literally costs millions and millions of dollars to develop
(23:51):
this logo, and everybody's like, wait a minute, I could
have done that. So I think you have a lot
of that where maybe logos are overthought a little bit,
you know, you know, well it's not. Obviously we think
logos are important, but ultimately what's more important is the product.
(24:12):
And the brand is not created by you when you
spend millions of dollars on your logo. The brand is
created by what people think of you. You don't control
your brand. That the customers control your brand.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Okay, I might, maybe I'll take a little bit of
issue with that. I think the logo, so when you
sell a truck, you're not selling an automobile. You're selling
an idea of yourself, of the customer. You're selling a dream,
you're selling a feeling. You know, trucks, they have these
brand new trucks. They're up on the mountain, going up
(24:47):
the hill and on the dirt road. Nobody's really going
to do that. They're selling I'm a he man, strong
person with a strong truck. They're selling an identity. And
so that's what cracker Barrel was doing. They were selling,
we're old timy, We're we we get you, rural America.
We know you don't want to change, and that that
(25:10):
old guy with a barrel. That was the same sort
of feeling they were selling, just like when you're selling
that big beefy unnecessarily beefy truck. And they threw that
away and and there was no image to elicit a feeling.
It's just this just nothing.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
So yeah, yeah, they replaced it with yeah exactly without without.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
That logo, it's just an amorphous idea floating around. But
this was it's it made you feel what they wanted
you to feel, the place to be, and they took
it away and they didn't replace it with anything. So
I have a couple others. I looked up some some
logos that the gap. Then the gap changed the blue
(26:02):
box and just had the word gap with a little
tiny blue box outside. I guess people went wild. I
can't really understand going wild over a gap, uh, you know,
being incensed and bothering, bothering to it, bothering to express
backlash over the gap. One uh, and there was one
(26:22):
other that was pretty uh my uber MySpace, the uber
they get rid of the OU, I mean the U
and where they change that. My Space was weird. Used
to say my space a place for friends, and then
it just said my with a space icon from a keyboard, Like, really,
(26:42):
why do you need to do that? So I'm talking
too much here. Let's let's let Frank, we have a
We have a caller Frank and Boston. I mean I
should say a friend. Uh here Frank in Boston would
like to chime in. Hi, Frank, say hello to Scott.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Hello, Scott, Hello Jema.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Is it because they changed the logo or is it because.
Speaker 6 (27:09):
Internet when it started driving people crazy? I mean it
went from the old man to to to a more
streamlined logo. Really that you're not going to go to
that restaurant because of that?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, more to it in this case, right, I understand
what you're saying, Frank. It got political. It was perceived
as well, you're taking away our old timey thing and
that's in this empty gesture progress and we feel that
that's another example of woke and we don't want it.
So there's another layer of sensitivity there, Scott, did I
(27:49):
interrupt you a little bit?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Does the caller in that in that you know in America.
We this is the this is the politics we quote
unquote politics we talk about today, things that are little
things that in the big scheme, little things that we
turn into big things. It's how if it's not this,
it's Sydney Sweeney being in the genes ad. You know,
these are these are these become these big symbolic issues
(28:14):
as opposed to talking about you know, the kitchen table issues,
you know, taxes and and and safety and these kind
of things. We like to take these symbolic issues that
that that that label you as blue or red, or
left or right and make a big deal out of them,
and that these are the things that that we talk
about on social media and in public life. This is
(28:34):
what it's all about today. And you could argue we're
talking about the wrong things.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
That's what happens with identity politics. Not only does every issue,
every political issue, uh get effected. Say this is an
issue such as immigration now because of identity politics, people
will take a position on that issue because they identify
(29:02):
as on the right or left, not based on the
merits of the issue. And this is the same thing
with branding now like that they will take a position
on the cracker barrel logo. Not because they care about
the logo, it's just they think, hmm, what's going on here.
I identify as a conservative, and well, it looks like
my conservative friends are against this, so I'm on board
(29:22):
with that. That's kind of and that applies to everything.
It goes beyond identity politics into identity everything, and that's
that's what you what you have here.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Well, let me yeah, let me let me take it
back to bud Light and tell tell you something you
might not know that really really points to the importance
of knowing your audience and research and and the fact
that so many companies, as I mentioned, they don't do
their research, you know. Now, bud Light, part of what
they did there is they were just doing a one
(29:55):
time promotion with is Dylan mulvaney. It was not, you know,
it wasn't some huge expense on their part. It just
it got picked up online and turned into huge things.
But this is what people most people don't know. The
exact same month that bud Light did that this ill
fated you know, alliance with this influencer, Nike did a
(30:16):
sports bra promotion with that exact same influencer, Dylan mulvaney.
But no one, no one said saying said a thing
about it. It didn't hurt Nike at all. Why because
Nike's customer base is different in bud Light's customer base.
You've got to research, is you gotta look. Politics are
part of the mix. Now you better understand how your
(30:38):
customer base is going to react to something it like Nike.
You know when Nike did the big thing with Colin Kaepernick,
where they partnered with Colin Kaepernick a few years ago
for an invert anniversary campaign. You had a bunch of
you had a bunch of people geting on social media
and conservatives and burned their Nikes and so forth. But
Nike didn't care because they had done their research and
(30:59):
their stuff went up and their sales went up, and
that came as very campaign was very successful for Nike
because they had a different customer base, younger people who
liked the idea of rebels. It was a different customer
base and it made the campaign succeed. If another brand
partner would Colin Kaepernick, they could go out of business.
It's just it's all about knowing who's buying your product,
(31:21):
who are you trying to appeal to, and who do
you not mind turning off.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Okay, I'm going to give you some time to think
about this because you might need a little time. Can
you give me an idea of a really really really
genius logo that you really love and you think the
company really put some thought into this, because I want
to take a break here, but that will give you
some time to think of an answer for that.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Coming up on WBZ, you're on Night Side with Dan
Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Hey, my friend, something cool and new for you. A
way to be part of the program if you're a
person shy about calling in and interacting. There's this new thing.
You get the radio app, which is you should have anyway,
the iHeartRadio app. You can get podcasts and listen to
the Night Side on it in case you missed the
show live. But while you're listen, if you do want
(32:10):
to listen live, there's a little icon of a microphone
in the upper right hand corn. To push that and
you you voice a message and it goes here. It
gets sent here. It's really quite cool. And then Rob
working a wheel and master control. He gets it all
cued up in the torpedo tube and at some point
when the host, whoever it might be, given the signal
(32:33):
we play it. We may play it if we decide
to play it. But it's it's a great way to
get on the air if you're shy about having an
actual conversation. Six seven, five, four, ten thirty a number
fe you'd like to get involved, This is easy. What
do you think of that new Cracker Barrel logo? Do
you think it's much ado about nothing? Do you think hey,
(32:54):
they never should have changed it? And even more basic?
Have you ever been to a Cracker Barrel? Please help
me understand what it's like. I've never been. I don't know.
I know I should do my research, but I don't
want to drive. I don't know where they are. It
wasn't worth it to drive out just so I could
I could know. Now, we we have Scott Arradella with
(33:17):
us on WBZ, who's an expert in marketing and logos
and such. What was my question to you? I almost forgot.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Oh you're asking you what my favorite logo was?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
And why?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Oh? Yeah, that's it? Is there really a spectacular one
that does everything that needs needs doing, that one would
never ever change?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Well, yeah, I'll tell you one. It might be not
the might be not the most surprising answer, but I'll
tell you why it's so such a good answer, and
it's the apple will go and and here's why. You know,
it's a simple, very simple apple with a bite out
of it. And what's amazing about it. Here's the high
tech company that it represents. You know, Hey, they revolutionaries,
(34:06):
revolutionized cell phones with the iPhone. Take your pick of
their innovations over the years. But they've basically had the
same logo since nineteen seventy seven, that's when this apple
came out. The difference is they've made really subtle changes
over time that are really important. Like when they started
out that apple had kind of these stripes on it,
(34:27):
these kind of a rainbow of stripes on it and
look very seventies. And then over time they changed it
was white, it was black, it was monochromatic silver. And
what they've done is they've made it a very simple
image that they've changed just enough over time the little
things that matter and design, like whether it's flat or
(34:48):
whether it looks three dimensional. They've made all those kind
of changes, but it's always been the same shape. So
I love how they've been able to adapt it over time,
and yet not lose anything because it's the same apple
and the same apple shape, the same size, none of
those things have changed. And what's great about it is
(35:08):
they really Apple, more than any other brand, I think,
has associated the idea of high tech with simplicity. In
other words, if you're doing a good job at technology,
what you're doing is making things simpler. And people didn't
used to think about technology that way. It was always
you know, all these gizmos and IBM and and PCs.
(35:30):
They didn't they didn't associate technology with simplicity in this
in the way that Apple has done. And now I
think we've all come to expect it. We all have
expect well, it's not very good technology if I can't
figure out how to use it in five seconds.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That's right. And Apple, what a company that that logo
stands for high high tech sex. It's sexy tech and
very very as user friendly tech. It's just crazy, crazy simple.
Usually when you can't figure something out, you call Apple
(36:04):
Tech Support, which and there is a number for that,
by the way, and you find the answer to your
question is so unbelievably simple that you thought, why, oh
my god, I didn't why didn't I think of that.
We have Steven and fair Haven Scott. He wants to
check in Steven. How you doing?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
How you doing?
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Yeah, I've been to plenty a crack of barrels, and
I'm gonna tell you right now, the food is delicious.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
I don't care about the logo, I don't care about nothing,
but the food is incredible.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
What do they serve? I heard they have breakfast all day?
What else.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
They have breakfast? Like unbelievable breakfast and then they have
steak and gravy and mashed potatoes and you know, I
mean there's like southern cooking and the food is like
it's like there's no other restaurants that you would go
to and sit down to home cooked meal like that.
It's the meal your mom made or your grandmother made.
(37:03):
That's that's kind of food to get over. The hot biscuits,
the corn bread, everything, it's it's it's really nice.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah. The whole thing about my mom's cooking, Your mom's cooking,
They better hope they're cooking. It's not like my mother's
cooking because because they because everybody beating fish sticks and
frozen peas. And that's not to put down my mother
because she was a teacher. She didn't she works, she
didn't have time to cook. But sometimes that home cook
(37:31):
I have, I don't really have a concept of home
cooked meal. Thanks a lot, Stevens.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
If you want, if you want you want a nice
home cooking meal, go to Cracker Barrel and mark my word.
After after you have a plate there, you'll see what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, that's right, Then I will know what a home
cooked meal is like. I know what home cooked meal
is like meat loaf, comfort food, shepherd. I take it back, Ma,
I'm sorry. We had Shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie was great,
all right, Scott, we just have her like two minutes.
What do you want to tell me to finish up here?
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Well, I guess what I would say is, you know,
you should go by Cracker Barrel. I like Cracker Barrel.
You know, my parents they grew up in the South,
and one of their relatives had a country store which
I would go to, and I've been to those since.
I remember those. But the thing I want to leave
you with though, is even though I remember that, and
I'm a little older, you know, I'm sixty now, and
(38:26):
my parents were older when I was born. They were
born in the Depression, so I know all that period.
But nostalgia has an expiration date, all right? How many
people under forty note have ever even sat in a
rocking chair and know what a cracker barrel is. If
nostalgia didn't have an expiration date, we'd all be pining
(38:46):
for powdered wigs and corsets and things, right, and we're
not and perfect.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
N Ago, I only have ten seconds.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Perfect, That's why it has to happen.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Scott, thank you so much for your input, and you're
a wonderful guest. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Thank you. You know. Megan and Totten, we're going to
break now for the news and stuff, but you hang
in there and I'll go right to you first and
you can talk about anything you want. Meghan
It's Night Side with Dan Ray. I'm tell you basy
he fostons me radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you Dan. You know we are going to talk
about the cracker Barrel debate, and there's a lot going
on in there. It's not just about a name. It's
about a whole lot more than that. But first I
do have Dorian and Chelsea, and just in case she
wants to talk, mention or comment upon the previous topic,
(00:26):
I want to get to her before we get into
the new topic. That would make sense, right, So we'll
go with Doreen and Chelsea quickly.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Here, Hi Doreen, Hi Bradley Jay.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I always wanted to talk to you. I remember you
on the SM channel.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Oh wow, that's well.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Thank you very much, and you have a very distinctive voice. Also,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
People think but I don't smoke.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
No, I always talk to Dan Ray and I always
talk to Morgan White.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Great, So what is it you wanted to talk about?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
You change the subject to the cracker barrel?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, you know you can go ahead.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
No, No, My opinion about that signs they lost money already.
They should have leave well enough alone.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Sometimes, Yes, that's right, that's a wise old saying. You
need to leave well enough alone. Sometimes. I'm sure that
they thought they could make more money if they changed it.
I mean, that has to be the reason.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
But they lost it on the stocks and bonds, didn't
they Yes, they lost it on the stock well hold
on stranger stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, there's this. Okay. I haven't thought about cracker barrel
maybe ever in my life, and now now I'm thinking
about it and talking about it, and they're famous. All
of a sudden, they're famous. So maybe this was a
genius move. I don't think they did it this way
on purpose, but it may be that they ended up
(02:05):
getting more famous because the idea of cracker barrel. It's
funny for me to even say it, the idea with you?
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Now, Yeah, I agree with you that have you ever
been to a cracker barrel? Yes? I have? And not
the endover. I don't even know if it's still there.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
All right, okay, Doreen, Well, thanks for that. And we're
going to talk to our guests now, and he's gonna
he's gonna give us a marketing sort of angle on here.
Let's talk to Scott Scott Birodell and Scott is a CEO.
Thus the EEO of a marketing company called Idea Groove,
(02:48):
and he's going to talk about the power of brand
marketing and examples of companies that have changed their branding
for better or for worse, and perhaps the strategies behind
the is there are a lot of things we don't
think about it. Maybe now in the digital world, when
you're looking at stuff on your little phone, maybe things
work better than others. Maybe a plan one works better.
(03:10):
But here's the expert to talk all about that. First,
let's welcome Scott. How do you do Scott? Thanks for
being with.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Us, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Tell me about your company.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Well, it's called Idea Grow. We're based in Dallas, Texas,
but we have clients all over and we mostly work
with technology companies, but we work with all kinds and.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So branding and logos being part of branding is a
very important thing absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I mean, we do a lot of work with branding,
and you know, basically, the logo is meant to be
a visual shortcut to tell people who you are and
what you're about. And I think that's definitely what was
happening here when they tried the logo change, because they
were really trying to reduce the clutter you know, designers
hate clutter to begin with, and this was a logo
(03:59):
that was very big. You know, it had the guy,
it had the barrel, it had the words under Cracker Barrel,
it had a lot going on. It had the pendo being,
which that's what was behind it. So there's a lot
happening and which made it kind of old fashioned, and
of course nostalgia is what the brand's about. But ultimately
they decided they wanted to modernize and that younger people,
(04:19):
especially under forty, wanted stores that were less cluttered. Because
the restaurants and stores at Cracker Barrel are known for
just having a lot of stuff on the walls and
being kind of cluttered. The logos cluttered. They're just trying
to clean everything up and an all hell broke loose.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
What made them think that getting cleaned up would be better?
Do they do focus groups? You would always do a
focus group before making a change of this magnitude.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Correct, Well, they certainly should have. I think what I
found over the years is even bigger companies, you'd surprised
how cheap they are when it comes to doing the
market research that they need to do. Sometimes these cmos,
these you know, the marketing executives and the CEOs just
think they know best, and you know, I know my
custom word. I don't need to do the research. But
(05:03):
a lot of brands have really paid the price for
that kind of arrogance. I don't know what kind of
research they did here. They hired, they had, They paid
a bunch of money for three different marketing firms to
work on this, So I'm assuming some research was done,
but obviously it didn't come to the right conclusions.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
It's a tough thing because you have equity built up
in your logo and your brand, a lot of equity
in that logo, and you have to you have to
weigh out, okay, we we need to decide whether this
will hurt us or help us. Now, it's my understanding
that the company hadn't been doing that well for some time,
(05:39):
and they probably said, you know, we need to make
some more money, and we have to take a look
at ways to do that. And they probably said a
lot of our clientele getting a little older, we want
to appeal to a younger demo. Maybe some digital mobile
device friendly logo would be good. But there are a
(06:01):
couple of factors they didn't They didn't include and they're thinking,
can you talk about those? I have one, but I
want you to go first.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Well, now I'm to know, but you know I would say, well,
what they tried to, uh do exactly what you're saying.
It's true they had. The reason they shook things up
the way they did is because things have been going
downhill little bit and they their clientele is getting older.
We have to find younger people to start coming into
(06:29):
the restaurants. What they didn't factor in is to impact
the change would have on their existing clientele, because it's
cutting off your nose, despite your face if you do
something to get younger people in the store, but then
it alienates your core audience. And that's what they did.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
There's one big factor I don't think they that they
thought about, and I'm going to get to that after this.
We this is we like to take callers here. So
let's see what Theodore and Maryland can bring to this.
Say hello to Scott.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Oh and oh, mister Bradley, how are you. I've called
to you before a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Oh, I know I remember you, certainly.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I'll tell you my story and hoople millions here. I've
been a surly poundcake customer for years. But last year
when I bought a pound cake, or a year and a
half ago, they you opened the top, it's a cardboard
top and there's the cake for all the years. And
I'm seventy six that I bought Surly poundcake, which was good.
(07:29):
They you open a cardboard top and there's a thin
piece of paper on top of the cake. You pull
that back. That keeps it fresh when you close it.
I called the company and they had I guess it
was missus Field good. Oh, yeah, I'm glad you're calling.
And eventually it resulted in them giving me a seven
dollars check, which I sent back.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
What was the complaint with the these pound cake that
made you call them? I'm not clear on that.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
When you opened the cardboard top and the paper a
thin piece of paper on top when you put when
you take a slice, then you put the thin piece
of paperback over the top. It keeps it fresh. Right now,
you open the car to take the card but off.
And they asked the cake nothing to keep it fresh?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So oh took away the plastic?
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Yes, And I sent them in it and said it's
things in this country sometimes changed, not for the best.
I have certain standards, and seven dollars is not enough
to have me by abandoned my standard. So I sent
the check back to them, and I haven't heard from
them now. You they got a honey breed, which is good.
But I love the poundcake, very good with ice cream.
(08:40):
And that's all they did, and I haven't bought one
in the last year and a half. They lost the customer.
And if anybody by this surily poundcake, you'll see it'll
get staled much faster.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Now, So here's the big question, Theodore from Maryland. Everybody's
got a price. What would they have to r for
you to make you love them again and continue to
buy Sarah Lely pound cake?
Speaker 4 (09:06):
And uh sing, Well, Bradley, I'm gonna tell you. I'll
tell you how much, Bradley, and I'll put I'll put
you to a research project. And this is the price, okay,
about fifteen twenty years ago. I'm reading USA today.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
God body, godcha, just give me the price.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
Well, nine hundred and ninety eight dollars. But I'll tell
you the story, ran it quickly.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
Guy.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Twenty years ago, he bought a box of X flax.
You know what that clack is, don't you? I do okay,
you know it makes you run a little bit, gets
out of constipation. He didn't like it. The X fact
costs him nine dollars ninety nine cents. He sent the
check back to the company that makes X slacks. Somebody
who heard him check for ninety nine thousand, ninety eight dollars.
(09:52):
And that's the check. And I've never found out whether
they caught the guy.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
All Right, the theater excellent, carl, and and we know
that your price is now about a thousand bucks. Then
you'd be happy again and we'll see what happens. I
would be a little miffed at seven bucks. How cheap
can you be? Anyway? Back to you school, back to
you spool.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
That's funny. Well, that reminds me there's so many brands
that take advantage of a legacy and a name and
they cheapen the product over time. And made me think
if things like Hostess cupcakes, Twinkies, these are products that
we were nostalgic about. People are a little older like us,
(10:33):
but but kids like this just taste like cardboard, and
then you taste it to day and it was like
it does it's not because we used to like cardboard.
It's because they've actually changed the product, and the product
is smaller, it doesn't have the same ingredients. But they're
just hoping that brand reputation will keep the sales going.
That's a dirty little trick that a lot of marketers play.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Okay, back to Cracker Barrel. I promise to tell you
the thing that they didn't consider. And I don't know
if this is widely known. Note maybe we only know
it after this Cracker Barrel thing. But in this political climate,
change is synonymous with woke, and that's what happened. Anything
(11:17):
away from there, precious old timey guy sitting at a
cracker barrel is perceived as woke, and whether it's true
or not, that's the perception, and that's why it became politicized.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Absolutely no, you're absolutely right. And one reason that happened,
particularly to Cracker Barrel is it's one of those brands
kind of like a hobby lobby or a Chick fil
A that's been kind of a political lightning rod for
a while. You know, you may or may not know that.
Back in the early nineties they got in big trouble
when they put out they actually have an official policy
(11:53):
that people needed to basically behave have normal heterosexual behavior,
and people who who were gay or gay in a
way that they didn't like how they behaved, they were
fired and it led to big lawsuits government action. There
were some racial things too in the nineties too, so
it was associated politically with extremely conservative views back then.
(12:19):
And then since the in the last five six years,
there's been a real change and they've wanted to be
a leader in promoting LGBTQ rights. They've they've been very
vocal about their DEI policies and things like that, and
so that had and then this was a brand where
conservatives had, you know, had said this is a nostalgic brand,
(12:43):
this is a conservative brand, and now suddenly it's a
DEI brand, it's a woke brand. So they were ready
to pounce when the logo change happened because there was
already these undercurrents going on out there.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I want to talk with you more, Scott. Right after
this on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's Night Side with Dany Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Bradley J for Dan on Night Side, I do love
a country store. About two hundred yards from where I
grew up. There was a store that was both post office,
country store and pinball arcade and gas station. Yes, the
post office was in that same place. There was a
small town. I love it. There was another one called
Caleb's Country Store. I love the creaking floors. No, but
(13:23):
I've never been to a cracker barrel. So if you'd
give me a shout at six one, seven thirty, tell
me what cracker barrels are like? Is it? Is it
like I? You know, the creaking floor old country store?
And also tell me if you liked the old logo
or you like the new one better. Have you seen them?
Do you really mind the new the new one? I
(13:44):
think the new one is ugly. The old one's okay,
the new one's just awful. I don't know what they
were thinking. Maybe it's compatible digital or something. I'm not sure. Uh,
Scott is a guest tonight, Scott Barradell CEO idea grow
of a marketing company, any idea where they chose that
(14:05):
super generic monstrosity that they did choose.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well, I think they were trying to simplify things and
they did, you know, get down to just having the
text logo of the cracker barrel in the background is
in the shape of a barrel on its side. But
it is pretty plain. I have to have to agree.
Even though they were trying to strip it down and
that was the objective, they might have gone a little
bit too far.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Yeah, before the logo actually told a little story about
what the product was, hey, or the feeling is supposed
to have if you could, if the thing was big enough,
you could see there's an old timey guy sitting next
in an old timey porch with an old timey barrel,
and you're supposed to come and hang around the barrel
(14:50):
and chat. By the way, why do you know why
crackers came in a barrel?
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I don't. I do know that they've been doing it
for a couple hundred years now, and they shipped them
in barrels, But I don't know the reason.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
To you, I read that there was just they are
too fragile to put in boxes that would get crushed,
so they were putting them in the barrel. And there
was soda crackers. That was the kind of crackers they were. Whatever.
I think, I know what's soda crackers are.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, that's like the I think. I think like your
basic uh, you know, saltines or soda crackers.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I think cracker so this isn't aside. I'm from the
count I am a country boy, so country am I
that you know we had on hot days for for supper.
First of all, saying supper is a country thing. Crackers
and milk. It was saltines crushed up in a bowl
with milk. That was supper in New Hamshot. Now you
(15:43):
were being a marketing guy, You've probably familiar with some
other instances of logo changes from big companies. I'm curious
if you could list a few of those and maybe
let us know how it turned out for them. Some
of them might have worked out, maybe maybe some didn't.
I do remember it's not only a logo change, but
a product's changed too, Like remember coke and then new coke?
(16:05):
Was it new Coke or something like that? Are you
you're probably not old enough to remember that.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
No, no, no, I am. You know I remember that,
And and some people think it was a conspiracy. Theorists
think they did it on purpose to you know that
basically at the time when the new Coke happened, that
you know, they obviously they changed the logo, They changed
the formula of coke to make it taste more like
pepsi and at the time, Pepsi was really gaining on Coke.
You know, it was the days of the Pepsi Challenge
(16:30):
and and really it was a very close competition at
the time, and New Coke tasted more like Pepsi. And
then there was such backlash that they went back and
came up with Coca Cola Classic, which the original version.
But it worked out for them because since then, ever
since then, Coke has really created real distance between itself
(16:53):
and Pepsi. You know, in terms of branding. That the
story that that I think is is recent that it's
not a logo change, but I think it's it's a
lot of parallels, is what happened with bud Light when
you talk about the whole woke thing, you know, bud Light,
and as I'm sure you know, you know, they were the
top deer brand in the country in terms of sales.
(17:14):
They partnered with a transgender influencer named Dylan Mulvaaney who
was an activist. He had visited the Biden White House
and things like that, and it led to this huge
backlash that since then the brand has has just gone
through the floor in terms of its sales.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And they were cognizant of what they were doing. They
knew they were going woke with that choice. On the
other hand, well, with Cracker Barrel, it's simply that any
change at this point now, any change is especially towards simplicity,
is progress or is any attempt of progress is automatically
considered woke.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Well let me let me tell you how there is
a similarity. The similarity that to me is it was
what people didn't realize. Even though bud Light was at
the time the top selling beer, just like Cracker Barrel,
they had been in a slow decline because just like
Cracker Barrel, they had a target customer or they had
(18:17):
a customer base that was getting older and older, and
they knew that it was only a matter of time
before they weren't numbering one anymore. And so just like
Cracker Barrel did the things it did with this logo
change and changing up their stores and all of that,
bud Light was reaching out to new types of you know, people,
(18:38):
to partner with a new marketing initiatives to try to
reach a younger audience, just like Cracker Barrel. So there
aren't those similarities you could So I don't think that
that ultimately bud Light did that for some political reasons.
I think they did it because they thought this is
a way to make other people who hadn't considered bud
Light consider it. But just like Cracker Barrel, what it
(19:00):
did is it alienated their core customer. And when you
alienate your core customer, you're really screwed. And that's why,
as you know, Cracker Barrel has reverse course. They're going
to keep the old logo. Who knows if they're going
to keep you know, the stores, or they're going to
go ahead with those changes. But all of these changes,
you should this is important. All of these changes they
(19:21):
were planning, not just the logo, but changing all of
the design of the stores. They're changing the menus to
add lighter fare and things like that. They're making all
these changes to appeal to younger audience. This whole, all
of these initiatives costs several hundred million dollars, a huge,
huge thing. And so what's going to be really interesting
(19:41):
to see is they've they've they've obviously reversed course on
the logo, what about all these other things are these planning,
As you said at the top, they were already in decline.
It's not like they can just go back to the
way things were because they had to make changes. Obviously,
what they did here they did in such a way
that it caused a backlash, but they gotta do something.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
In both cases, they seem like they threw the baby
out with the bathwater, Especially bud Light. That was I'm
trying to picture how it went in the boardroom, and
I'm gonna I don't want you to answer this before
the break. I want you to answer it after because
it'd probably be a good, solid, lengthy explanation. But I
want you to You mentioned earlier that companies were big.
(20:23):
Big companies were surprisingly cheap. I'm gonna ask you after this,
are good big companies also surprisingly dumb? Because it's pretty basic. Hey,
our entire base is people who go to football games,
people who tailgate, people who go do sports, cowboys, rodeo people.
(20:48):
Didn't they stop to think they're gonna really flip out
when we put when we go with what we're planning.
It's I guess that seems crazy that they would even
think that. They never even considered, boy, we're gonna lose
our base. So I like to ask you at the
other side of the break, in your experience with these companies.
Are you surprised at the at the inability to read
(21:12):
the room or read the situation on some of these
big companies. In a moment on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Continue to discuss the cracker barrel logo change and all
that that entails. And we're here with a CEO of
a marketing company called Idea Growth, good name, by the way,
don't change her, don't change your logo. They've Scott Barradella,
And I asked him, Hey, Scott, your dealings with these
big companies and these board rooms, having these meetings, you
(21:48):
are you struck by how the surprising mistakes they make
and you'd think they'd be smarter and they're not. Is
that the case?
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Oh yeah, it happens all the time. You could argue
it happened. We're talking about a logo change that that
was a little more than that that really turned a
lot of people off. Was earlier this year was Jaguar,
you know, the British car brand.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
They took away the image of the Jaguar and just
had the script right.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Yeah, it's like where's the car? So you had this
assortment of people that I guess might be described as
woke in colorful outfits. And they had a logo that
a new logo that people weren't crazy about, and there
wasn't much talk about cars and it seemed to be
(22:40):
more about this kind of again. You know, Jaguar is
another brand that had been struggling for a while and
they were trying to come up with something fresh and new.
But you know, if you throw out, you know, the
things that you the legacy a lot of times, you know,
what do you have left if if you can't hang
(23:00):
on to the things about your brand that people like.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
How about some other failed logo changes?
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Oh, failed logo changes. Well, there's been a lot of
logos where you know, it's been made to someone had
a great idea and to so I just spend millions
of dollars on it. I don't think it was a
bad logo. But there's a lot of talk about when
(23:29):
Federal Express changed to FedEx because you know, literally, if
people have been calling Federal Express FedEx for years, they said, okay,
let's make the logo say FedEx instead of Federal Express.
And they designed it in such a way that there
was an little arrow pointing forward embedded within it. But
it literally costs millions and millions of dollars to develop
(23:51):
this logo, and everybody's like, wait a minute, I could
have done that. So I think you have a lot
of that where maybe logos are overthought a little bit,
you know, you know, well it's not. Obviously we think
logos are important, but ultimately what's more important is the product.
(24:12):
And the brand is not created by you when you
spend millions of dollars on your logo. The brand is
created by what people think of you. You don't control
your brand. That the customers control your brand.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Okay, I might, maybe I'll take a little bit of
issue with that. I think the logo, so when you
sell a truck, you're not selling an automobile. You're selling
an idea of yourself, of the customer. You're selling a dream,
you're selling a feeling. You know, trucks, they have these
brand new trucks. They're up on the mountain, going up
(24:47):
the hill and on the dirt road. Nobody's really going
to do that. They're selling I'm a he man, strong
person with a strong truck. They're selling an identity. And
so that's what cracker Barrel was doing. They were selling,
we're old timy, We're we we get you, rural America.
We know you don't want to change, and that that
(25:10):
old guy with a barrel. That was the same sort
of feeling they were selling, just like when you're selling
that big beefy unnecessarily beefy truck. And they threw that
away and and there was no image to elicit a feeling.
It's just this just nothing.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
So yeah, yeah, they replaced it with yeah exactly without without.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
That logo, it's just an amorphous idea floating around. But
this was it's it made you feel what they wanted
you to feel, the place to be, and they took
it away and they didn't replace it with anything. So
I have a couple others. I looked up some some
logos that the gap. Then the gap changed the blue
(26:02):
box and just had the word gap with a little
tiny blue box outside. I guess people went wild. I
can't really understand going wild over a gap, uh, you know,
being incensed and bothering, bothering to it, bothering to express
backlash over the gap. One uh, and there was one
(26:22):
other that was pretty uh my uber MySpace, the uber
they get rid of the OU, I mean the U
and where they change that. My Space was weird. Used
to say my space a place for friends, and then
it just said my with a space icon from a keyboard, Like, really,
(26:42):
why do you need to do that? So I'm talking
too much here. Let's let's let Frank, we have a
We have a caller Frank and Boston. I mean I
should say a friend. Uh here Frank in Boston would
like to chime in. Hi, Frank, say hello to Scott.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
Hello, Scott, Hello Jema.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Is it because they changed the logo or is it because.
Speaker 6 (27:09):
Internet when it started driving people crazy? I mean it
went from the old man to to to a more
streamlined logo. Really that you're not going to go to
that restaurant because of that?
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Well, more to it in this case, right, I understand
what you're saying, Frank. It got political. It was perceived
as well, you're taking away our old timey thing and
that's in this empty gesture progress and we feel that
that's another example of woke and we don't want it.
So there's another layer of sensitivity there, Scott, did I
(27:49):
interrupt you a little bit?
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Does the caller in that in that you know in America.
We this is the this is the politics we quote
unquote politics we talk about today, things that are little
things that in the big scheme, little things that we
turn into big things. It's how if it's not this,
it's Sydney Sweeney being in the genes ad. You know,
these are these are these become these big symbolic issues
(28:14):
as opposed to talking about you know, the kitchen table issues,
you know, taxes and and and safety and these kind
of things. We like to take these symbolic issues that
that that that label you as blue or red, or
left or right and make a big deal out of them,
and that these are the things that that we talk
about on social media and in public life. This is
(28:34):
what it's all about today. And you could argue we're
talking about the wrong things.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
That's what happens with identity politics. Not only does every issue,
every political issue, uh get effected. Say this is an
issue such as immigration now because of identity politics, people
will take a position on that issue because they identify
(29:02):
as on the right or left, not based on the
merits of the issue. And this is the same thing
with branding now like that they will take a position
on the cracker barrel logo. Not because they care about
the logo, it's just they think, hmm, what's going on here.
I identify as a conservative, and well, it looks like
my conservative friends are against this, so I'm on board
(29:22):
with that. That's kind of and that applies to everything.
It goes beyond identity politics into identity everything, and that's
that's what you what you have here.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Well, let me yeah, let me let me take it
back to bud Light and tell tell you something you
might not know that really really points to the importance
of knowing your audience and research and and the fact
that so many companies, as I mentioned, they don't do
their research, you know. Now, bud Light, part of what
they did there is they were just doing a one
(29:55):
time promotion with is Dylan mulvaney. It was not, you know,
it wasn't some huge expense on their part. It just
it got picked up online and turned into huge things.
But this is what people most people don't know. The
exact same month that bud Light did that this ill
fated you know, alliance with this influencer, Nike did a
(30:16):
sports bra promotion with that exact same influencer, Dylan mulvaney.
But no one, no one said saying said a thing
about it. It didn't hurt Nike at all. Why because
Nike's customer base is different in bud Light's customer base.
You've got to research, is you gotta look. Politics are
part of the mix. Now you better understand how your
(30:38):
customer base is going to react to something it like Nike.
You know when Nike did the big thing with Colin Kaepernick,
where they partnered with Colin Kaepernick a few years ago
for an invert anniversary campaign. You had a bunch of
you had a bunch of people geting on social media
and conservatives and burned their Nikes and so forth. But
Nike didn't care because they had done their research and
(30:59):
their stuff went up and their sales went up, and
that came as very campaign was very successful for Nike
because they had a different customer base, younger people who
liked the idea of rebels. It was a different customer
base and it made the campaign succeed. If another brand
partner would Colin Kaepernick, they could go out of business.
It's just it's all about knowing who's buying your product,
(31:21):
who are you trying to appeal to, and who do
you not mind turning off.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Okay, I'm going to give you some time to think
about this because you might need a little time. Can
you give me an idea of a really really really
genius logo that you really love and you think the
company really put some thought into this, because I want
to take a break here, but that will give you
some time to think of an answer for that.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Coming up on WBZ, you're on Night Side with Dan
Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Hey, my friend, something cool and new for you. A
way to be part of the program if you're a
person shy about calling in and interacting. There's this new thing.
You get the radio app, which is you should have anyway,
the iHeartRadio app. You can get podcasts and listen to
the Night Side on it in case you missed the
show live. But while you're listen, if you do want
(32:10):
to listen live, there's a little icon of a microphone
in the upper right hand corn. To push that and
you you voice a message and it goes here. It
gets sent here. It's really quite cool. And then Rob
working a wheel and master control. He gets it all
cued up in the torpedo tube and at some point
when the host, whoever it might be, given the signal
(32:33):
we play it. We may play it if we decide
to play it. But it's it's a great way to
get on the air if you're shy about having an
actual conversation. Six seven, five, four, ten thirty a number
fe you'd like to get involved, This is easy. What
do you think of that new Cracker Barrel logo? Do
you think it's much ado about nothing? Do you think hey,
(32:54):
they never should have changed it? And even more basic?
Have you ever been to a Cracker Barrel? Please help
me understand what it's like. I've never been. I don't know.
I know I should do my research, but I don't
want to drive. I don't know where they are. It
wasn't worth it to drive out just so I could
I could know. Now, we we have Scott Arradella with
(33:17):
us on WBZ, who's an expert in marketing and logos
and such. What was my question to you? I almost forgot.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Oh you're asking you what my favorite logo was?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
And why?
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Oh? Yeah, that's it? Is there really a spectacular one
that does everything that needs needs doing, that one would
never ever change?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Well, yeah, I'll tell you one. It might be not
the might be not the most surprising answer, but I'll
tell you why it's so such a good answer, and
it's the apple will go and and here's why. You know,
it's a simple, very simple apple with a bite out
of it. And what's amazing about it. Here's the high
tech company that it represents. You know, Hey, they revolutionaries,
(34:06):
revolutionized cell phones with the iPhone. Take your pick of
their innovations over the years. But they've basically had the
same logo since nineteen seventy seven, that's when this apple
came out. The difference is they've made really subtle changes
over time that are really important. Like when they started
out that apple had kind of these stripes on it,
(34:27):
these kind of a rainbow of stripes on it and
look very seventies. And then over time they changed it
was white, it was black, it was monochromatic silver. And
what they've done is they've made it a very simple
image that they've changed just enough over time the little
things that matter and design, like whether it's flat or
(34:48):
whether it looks three dimensional. They've made all those kind
of changes, but it's always been the same shape. So
I love how they've been able to adapt it over time,
and yet not lose anything because it's the same apple
and the same apple shape, the same size, none of
those things have changed. And what's great about it is
(35:08):
they really Apple, more than any other brand, I think,
has associated the idea of high tech with simplicity. In
other words, if you're doing a good job at technology,
what you're doing is making things simpler. And people didn't
used to think about technology that way. It was always
you know, all these gizmos and IBM and and PCs.
(35:30):
They didn't they didn't associate technology with simplicity in this
in the way that Apple has done. And now I
think we've all come to expect it. We all have
expect well, it's not very good technology if I can't
figure out how to use it in five seconds.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That's right. And Apple, what a company that that logo
stands for high high tech sex. It's sexy tech and
very very as user friendly tech. It's just crazy, crazy simple.
Usually when you can't figure something out, you call Apple
(36:04):
Tech Support, which and there is a number for that,
by the way, and you find the answer to your
question is so unbelievably simple that you thought, why, oh
my god, I didn't why didn't I think of that.
We have Steven and fair Haven Scott. He wants to
check in Steven. How you doing?
Speaker 3 (36:22):
How you doing?
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Yeah, I've been to plenty a crack of barrels, and
I'm gonna tell you right now, the food is delicious.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
I don't care about the logo, I don't care about nothing,
but the food is incredible.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
What do they serve? I heard they have breakfast all day?
What else.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
They have breakfast? Like unbelievable breakfast and then they have
steak and gravy and mashed potatoes and you know, I
mean there's like southern cooking and the food is like
it's like there's no other restaurants that you would go
to and sit down to home cooked meal like that.
It's the meal your mom made or your grandmother made.
(37:03):
That's that's kind of food to get over. The hot biscuits,
the corn bread, everything, it's it's it's really nice.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah. The whole thing about my mom's cooking, Your mom's cooking,
They better hope they're cooking. It's not like my mother's
cooking because because they because everybody beating fish sticks and
frozen peas. And that's not to put down my mother
because she was a teacher. She didn't she works, she
didn't have time to cook. But sometimes that home cook
(37:31):
I have, I don't really have a concept of home
cooked meal. Thanks a lot, Stevens.
Speaker 5 (37:36):
If you want, if you want you want a nice
home cooking meal, go to Cracker Barrel and mark my word.
After after you have a plate there, you'll see what
I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Well, that's right, Then I will know what a home
cooked meal is like. I know what home cooked meal
is like meat loaf, comfort food, shepherd. I take it back, Ma,
I'm sorry. We had Shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie was great,
all right, Scott, we just have her like two minutes.
What do you want to tell me to finish up here?
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Well, I guess what I would say is, you know,
you should go by Cracker Barrel. I like Cracker Barrel.
You know, my parents they grew up in the South,
and one of their relatives had a country store which
I would go to, and I've been to those since.
I remember those. But the thing I want to leave
you with though, is even though I remember that, and
I'm a little older, you know, I'm sixty now, and
(38:26):
my parents were older when I was born. They were
born in the Depression, so I know all that period.
But nostalgia has an expiration date, all right? How many
people under forty note have ever even sat in a
rocking chair and know what a cracker barrel is. If
nostalgia didn't have an expiration date, we'd all be pining
(38:46):
for powdered wigs and corsets and things, right, and we're
not and perfect.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
N Ago, I only have ten seconds.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
Perfect, That's why it has to happen.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Scott, thank you so much for your input, and you're
a wonderful guest. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
My pleasure.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Thank you. You know. Megan and Totten, we're going to
break now for the news and stuff, but you hang
in there and I'll go right to you first and
you can talk about anything you want. Meghan
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