Cracker Barrel and the logo fiasco: the real lesson.

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In case you’ve been away on Mars for summer vacation, Cracker Barrel announced a rebrand, social media erupted, Trump tweeted, and within days they reversed course and went back to their old logo. But here’s the spoiler: this was never really about a logo. It was about who controlled the story.

Okay. Now you’re caught up. How was Mars?

Cracker Barrel before and after images

First things first: let’s not romanticize the old Cracker Barrel logo. We can all agree that thing was crap. Overly fussy, hard to reproduce at small scale, and more nostalgia than any semblance of valuable visual communication. It screamed 1970s “down-home” branding, which is exactly when it was born. The barrel-and-guy part was never sacred. Losing him wasn’t tossing a Picasso into a garbage can, it was shedding a dated illustration that had long outlived its usefulness.

The new logo? From a purely graphic standpoint? Decidedly better. Cleaner. Contextual. Legible in digital environments. A mark you can actually scale to an app icon without losing the plot. Any competent designer will tell you it was an upgrade. And yet here we are, watching the company scramble back to Uncle Herschel after a week of torches and pitchforks from the social media mob. “REDOS WILL NOT REPLACE US.”

Here’s the thing most people—including, notably, the president—missed: the logo was just one element of a much broader brand storyboard. A great new color palette. Revised typography. Shapes that make sense, including the central-focus barrel outline. Cracker Barrel’s leadership wasn’t trying to erase “heritage.” They were trying to refresh a rickety old brand with a comprehensive strategy aimed at the next two decades or so. This included remodeled restaurants, a reworked menu, more efficient kitchens, and a retail rethink that included some pretty nifty new packaging. They wrapped it all in a central theme called “All the More.” They weren’t just drawing a new wordmark; they were attempting a strategic modernization across the board.

Cracker Barrel brand story board image

And the strategy surrounding this brand refresh was sound. Cracker Barrel’s real problem wasn’t just an outdated logo…it’s an aging customer base. Julie Felss Masino, the CEO, even said it out loud on Good Morning America: “Cracker Barrel needs to feel like the place they (their audience) want to be today, and tomorrow.” The backlash to the logo redesign, of course, is all about holding on to yesterday.

The heavy blowback wasn’t about typography or colors or shapes—it was about identity politics. For some, any change to anything in America equals “woke.” For others, evolution is just common sense. The logo became a proxy fight in America’s culture war, which is ridiculous but inevitable in 2025.

And here’s the rub: no matter what side you’re on, Cracker Barrel comes out on top. For two weeks, the entire country was talking about Cracker Barrel. Lead segments on national news programs. Graphic designers guesting on CNN. Let me repeat that: Cracker Barrel. A brand that hasn’t been relevant in a national conversation since, well, ever. As I wrote in a recent post: the conversation is the campaign. Millions of people who hadn’t thought about hashbrown casserole in years suddenly had strong opinions about a roadside chain’s logo. That’s brand oxygen you can’t buy.

Let’s also not forget that this was not the first time the Cracker Barrel logo has been updated. It’s gone through multiple tweaks across its 50+ year history. Brands evolve their marks based on strategic direction, but also on design trends and the zeitgeist. Burger King did. Pringles did. Pepsi has done it enough times you could write a doctoral thesis on their logo alone. Logos aren’t museum pieces; they’re tools that adapt to the times, the mediums, the audiences, and the brand strategy.

Cracker Barrel logo evolution image

So, what actually is the Cracker Barrel brand? Here’s the core: folksy and casual roadside restaurants, easy to find off the interstate. They serve good, abundant food quickly, at a reasonable price, wrapped in a veneer of “Americana” hospitality. The real differentiators are iconic: the country store you pass through, the rocking chairs out front, and that peg game on every table that challenges your executive functions before your cornbread arrives. None of that has changed. The identity and experiences and memories that actually create the Cracker Barrel brand remain untouched.

So let’s get to the real lesson here. Cracker Barrel’s problem wasn’t that the new logo was good or bad or different. The problem was that the storytelling around its release got hijacked by everyone with a social media account. Everything else – the nostalgia equity, the politics, the stock prices – those were just symptoms. And because of those symptoms, they caved to the noise with a wimpy “we listened” statement just days later.

Cracker Barrel let themselves get dragged into a culture war, and they blinked. Brands should evolve. They must evolve. But evolution requires courage and clarity of communication. Without it, you wind up explaining why Uncle Herschel is back on the porch in your crappy old logo. And here’s a billion-dollar question: now that you’ve reverted back to the old logo, are you stuck with it forever? Will there EVER be a time when updating it is appropriate? 2026? 2030? As it relates to evolving in ANY way, the company has made it increasingly difficult for itself with this slippery precedent.

For the record, I think reverting to the old logo was a mistake. It ceded the narrative to the loudest voices and undercut the logic of the broader strategy. Now the 21st-century brand experience is saddled with a 1970s logo. That mismatch doesn’t just look awkward—it confuses customers. And confusion at the brand level eventually shows up where it hurts: at the cash register.

American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney: massive marketing mileage from meh advertising.

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American Eagle Sidney Sweeney advertising image

A lot has been made over the recent American Eagle ads, called “great jeans,” featuring the actress Sydney Sweeney. And the question is, of course, why?

The advertising itself is pretty meh. And that’s not a knock on the creative or production teams. I just mean it’s super simple, mostly one-shots, no effects, no music bed, etc. Just stripped down actor-on-screen-reading-lines stuff. And Sweeney demonstrates no range as an actress – it’s almost a staged testimonial. The “big idea” was leveraging a pun on the word “jeans” to overtly imply “genes.” Okay, not earth-shattering, but not altogether a terrible way in.

It also affords American Eagle the opportunity to call their product line “great,” under the auspices of the pun construct. And the spots (there are at least four :30 versions, including one where she is shown auditioning for the part,) are simple showcases for her body shown in double denim. I’m much more surprised that the blowback wasn’t from the fashion police. Eeeeek!

Sweeney’s primary appeal, to put it kindly, is not in her eyes, nor in her hair (which was almost purposefully styled to look un-styled for these shoots,) nor is it her vocal fry let-me-be-sultry half-whispers. But that appeal was hardly leveraged in any of the spots. So it’s not overtly sexualized.

And any comparisons to Brooke Shields’ turn in Calvin Kleins from the early 1980’s are unwarranted. Sure, the American Eagle ads may be derivative, (attractive young woman alone, lying on the floor, talking directly to camera in and about her jeans,) but Shields was an akimbo nearly six feet tall 15-year old uttering lines that she probably didn’t fully understand to be as provocative as they were. “What comes between me and my Calvins” is far more suggestive and dangerous than a nearly-28-year old independently wealthy, 5’3” actress/producer reading a script whose impetus is a pun on the word “jeans.”

But then, there was no global public forum back in 1980 for moral critics—or heads of state—to air their grievances and/or share their hot takes. The wrong voices have taken over the conversation. And much of it is helping American Eagle get far more mileage out of this campaign than they likely would have otherwise.

In fact, were it not for social media, almost nobody would be talking about these ads, except for maybe the VIP tier of the Sydney Sweeney fan club. On one hand, you have some virtuists (not a word, but if Shakespeare can do it, so can I,) calling one of the ads “racist” and “eugenics signaling” (not kidding) because Sweeney refers to her jeans/genes being blue. (And because she’s Caucasian. And has blonde hair.) Nowhere in the script does it say anything about that making her superior or preferable. You want a script gone awry? Try on Dove’s “white is purity” debacle from 2017. Oooof.

Are there legitimate concerns that AE is showing a skinny white girl in their ads, instead of someone of color, or someone who is more representative of the average American woman in terms of size? Perhaps. According to multiple—and conflicting—sources, the average woman’s jean size is somewhere between 12 and 16. AE chose to ignore that, and opted instead to feature a size 2 or 4 Sweeney. They did it not to be exclusive, or dismissive, but to capitalize on her ascendant stardom and her significant influencer status as a social media personality with a hefty following. The ads are neither racy, nor racist. They’re just aimed at the average/likely American Eagle consumer, who happens to be young-ish and caucasian-ish, and probably identifies with or admires Sweeney in some way.

I also like that American Eagle responded to the criticism. An Instagram post from the brand reads:

“ ‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

[Sidebar to all social media community and brand managers: note how the focus is more on the category (jeans) than it is on the brand (AE.)]

In many ways, the conversation has become the campaign. The advertising was just the spark that lit the fire. While that’s exciting, it’s also impossible to control…so AE ought to enjoy this, and be sure to not add any additional accelerant.

Is there a moral to this story? Is there a story in this story? I think so. But it’s far less complicated or sinister than most are making it out to be. I think American Eagle shelled out a lot of money to hire Sydney Sweeney, did some OK advertising, and has gotten tons of marketing mileage out of this, in just over a week. In our business, that’s a big win. And no matter what you do when you’re advertising, you will never please all of the people all of the time.

But remember. American Eagle is a for-profit apparel brand. And their target audience is not (and never was) “all of the people.”

Southwest is headed south.

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Southwest Airlines current logo

Over the last several weeks, Southwest Airlines has made some big announcements. First, it announced that its “open seating” policy will be a thing of the past, now switching to assigned seating and offering premium seating as early as next year. The other doozy they just dropped (it tickled me to write that,) is that the airline will now be charging for baggage.

There were some less-doozy-ish announcements too, like making its fares available on aggregators like Expedia, significant changes to its loyalty program and a partnership with Icelandair.

This reminds me a lot of that whopper of a whiff (now I’m on a roll,) by Dunkin Donuts a few years back. (See post here.) Let that – and the subsequent parting of the ways with CMO Tony Wesman – be a lesson on self-inflicted marketing wounds.

Now, turning back to this mother of a misstep, (it just comes naturally to me,) let’s look at how Southwest was different from all other airlines. First, it did not have assigned seating. You just got on the plane and sat where you found one. Second, it never charged baggage fees. In fact, you could check up to TWO bags for free. They had a robust and passionate consumer base that preferred Southwest’s quirky, “we’re-not-like-the-other-guys” approach. It’s what contributed to the idea that Southwest was the airline “with heart and hospitality.”

As an aside, Southwest was quite different operationally as well. They chose to fly the same airplanes (interestingly, the Boeing 737, which includes the 737 Max 8,) across their entire fleet. This meant that their maintenance and mechanical functions could be streamlined for both speed and efficiency. By not serving other manufacturers, Southwest never had to wait for an Airbus expert, or contact a McDonnell Douglas specialist, if some kind of maintenance was needed on an airplane. That same efficiency carried over to sourcing parts, and buying in bulk…all Boeing OEM and likely the same third-party suppliers.

When you look at any marketing category, it’s sometimes hard to see which player has an advantage, or if any player has an advantage at all. That was never the case with the domestic airlines category: Southwest was BY FAR the most strategically well-positioned brand in the category. Those consumer-facing and behind-the-scenes aspects of the brand made the company interesting. And different. And almost entirely focused on keeping costs down for the consumer, which was always welcome news in a world where the price of everything seems to be going up, up, up, and fast.

As a result, Southwest pretty much beat the snot out of their rivals. Planes always full. Reviews always positive. Loyalty always very high.

Southwest Airlines former logo

Enter Elliott Investment Management. They’re some hot-shot hedge fund that likes to get press by “activist investing,” which is code for acting like a big baby after you buy a significant stake in a company. Led by Paul Singer, their founder and lead investment officer, Elliott purchased a roughly 10% share (about $2 Billion) in Southwest Airlines in June of 2024, and began to systematically trash the house. First they called a “special meeting” to openly criticize the CEO and the board of directors for not chasing profits. Then they forced resignations and retirements of key executives, installed their own CEO and half a dozen other cronies, all of whom likely devised these “policy changes,” like trying to wring up to a hundred bucks more out of every Southwest passenger on every flight.

So – if you want to know why Southwest would basically chew off its own arm when it had an established and defensible market position, it might simply be because some rich dude in Palm Beach wants to show the world how big his balance sheet is, legendary brand position be damned.

IMHO, this won’t end well for Southwest in either outcome scenario. If the company makes these radical changes, and it starts to deliver a profit in a year or two that would be acceptable to Elliott Investment Management, then I’ll eat crow AND they will have done so at the expense of a wonderfully and strategically differentiated brand. They’ll just be another commoditized domestic airline that consumers will shop based on slim price margins and/or if they service a particular destination. I think I’ve heard of them…JetBlue, right?

And what if Southwest Airlines does NOT show a profit? What if they lose more money? What if they become poach-able by some other airline that finds their routes and their operations desirable? Well then, Mr. Singer, you’ve killed a very successful company AND a very important brand for no good reason.

And that’s why I’m miffed in my mittens: either way this goes for the company, a really strong brand dies in the process.

Listen kids, work as hard as you can to make your brand different in some meaningful way.

Be different.

STAY different.

Even at the expense of some nominal basis points in potential additional profit.
Real brands with real positions are hard to come by these days.

Super Bowl 59 Grins and Groans

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Super Bowl 59 is in the books, and congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles on an outstanding performance. If you were in the mood for a dominating defensive performance, you had a very good evening. If you were in the mood for great advertising, well…you certainly got a LOT of ads, but not sure if they were all great. Some high points, some low points, and some decidedly weird points. Let’s break it down.

Themes
Like last year, a lot of advertisers turned to the meta approach for their spots. This is when the ad is about making the ad. Dunkin, Homes.com and UberEats all took this approach, and it can be really funny (like the way Homes.com doubled down on the “it’s the best” meme with Morgan Freeman,) or it can get a little obtuse, like the Dunkin’ ad with actor Jeremy Strong trying to get into character by immersing himself in a barrel of coffee beans. (Right?)

Facial hair was another theme in this year’s ads. (There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.) Both Pringles and Little Caesars decided that their best angle would be to have men’s facial hair – eyebrows and mustaches – fly off for some odd reason. Some of the gags were humorous (the caterpillars chanting “we’re not worthy” to Eugene Levy’s eyebrows made me chuckle,) and I think Pringles did it with a bit more context. After all, there’s a giant mustache on every package.

A surprising few amount of spots this year from car manufacturers. Polestar showed up in the pregame show, but not as an official Super Bowl commercial. Only Jeep and Ram appeared this year, which is odd, given the history of this game and some of the iconic spots that have run. If you’re counting, we had more spots with Matthew McConaughey than with cars.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:
A few ads played it safe, and still managed to deliver decent brand messages. Orlando Bloom and Drew Barrymore did a cute tete-a-tete on European vs American holiday/vacation expressions, and it painted MSC Cruises in a similarly cute light. Homes.com played at the idea of saying they’re “the best” while their legal counsel advised them that they can’t legally say that. Uber Eats continued their “the NFL is trying to sell you food” conspiracy theory with origin stories, and it gets especially funny when Martha Stewart laughs hysterically that the Super Bowl venue is “named after a salad!”

The last couple of years, Jesus has made an appearance at the Super Bowl, but this year’s was a bit more special because he brought along a better soundtrack. Note to aspiring creative directors: having Johnny Cash sing Depeche Mode in your spot is ALWAYS a good idea. Hat tip to Jesus’ creative team. Hailee Steinfeld and Wanda Sykes teamed up for a smart PSA that made me look, er, notice, er, appreciate their, I mean ITS, value. It’s for Novartis, and it’s aimed at getting more women screened for breast cancer. And Dove scores another hit with a female empowerment spot that was punctuated by the line “let’s change the way we talk to our girls.” Nice.

While we’re mentioning some ads, we have to talk about Seal playing a, well, seal in the Mountain Dew spot. If facial hair flying off faces, and tongues flying out of mouths (more on that in a moment,) wasn’t weird enough, a seal with the face of Seal, singing a jingle to the tune of “Kiss From a Rose” was basically a 12 on the weird-o-meter. Fun? Sure. But about 50 million Americans probably had a terrifying dream about that one last night.

GRINS
First off, golf claps to Weather Tech for finally listening to their agency and doing a concept spot instead of their usual “here’s a view of our factory where we prove they’re made in America” pandering. The grannies-go-wild approach offered lots of good laughs, and then quietly made a nice plug for their spill-proof floor mats. Much more memorable than the last few years.

Google Pixel 9 really tugged at the heartstrings with their dad-and-daughter vignette disguised as a “guy turns to Gemini AI for help preparing for his job interview.” The reason this worked so well is that it contextualized the product benefits while letting us in on the backstory. Really well-conceived, and really well-produced. You almost never want to go soft-sell on Super Bowl, but Google almost always has, and almost always wins.

Liquid Death literally made me LOL with its “drinking on the job” spot. Pilots, surgeons, school bus drivers, even the cops are pounding Liquid Death, and to an awesome theme song. The company has disguised their filtered water to look like small-batch beer cans, and this is exactly why: so they can misdirect and manipulate you right into the big reveal. Good stuff. Spots end with bold type: “Don’t be scared. It’s just water.”

It just isn’t Super Bowl without a Budweiser Clydesdale spot, and this one, “a horse walks into a bar,” is by far one of their best ever. It’s great storytelling, with virtually no dialogue. Our hero is faced with a choice, has to overcome difficult challenges along the way, and somehow, some way, prevails. For decades, Budweiser hasn’t even tried to sell beer with their Super Bowl commercials…they sell this version of Americana on which we can (almost) all agree.

Hellmann’s went retro with their “When Harry Met Sally” sendup. It features Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan back in Katz’s Deli, and wouldn’t you know it? Meg has another orgasmic experience (this time it’s REAL!) thanks to a shmear of Hellmann’s mayonnaise. Targeted at Gen X? You bet. Wrapped in a bow for Gen Z? Sure, and that’s why you have Sydney Sweeney deliver the punchline. So much better than their last several years of Super Bowl spots, which were big groans for me. Oh, and Hellmann’s signs off with the apt line “It hits the spot.”

Doritos proves that when you crowdsource your advertising (through their thankfully resurrected “Crash the Super Bowl” campaign,) really good things can happen. Here, an alien ship comes to Earth and tries to take a guy’s Doritos away. He fights them off – sort of – and then, by chance, the Doritos destroy the alien ship! The alien survives, and he/she/it (?) and the guy enjoy the chips together. What’s great about Doritos is that they ALWAYS put the brand front and center, and the motivation is consistent: get your hands on some Doritos.

I think my favorite of the night (and this is a bit of a critic’s pick, I’ll admit) was the ChatGPT “dots” ad. Again, no voiceover, just graphics, and magnificent ones at that. All of it based off ChatGPT’s “dot” prompt. So it’s a little “hello world,” and a little “IYKYK.” Anyone who has used ChatGPT will recognize the dot. During the spot, the dots sync up to go and create all kinds of interesting images, symbolizing progress through time, from fire to the wheel to the steam ship, to walking on the moon, to dial up modems to now. And then it delivers the line “all progress has a starting point.” I like this most of all. It says “AI is not the be-all and end-all. We’re just getting going, and let’s see where we might go from here.” A bit of a departure for Super Bowl advertising, but a simple and clear way to illustrate the power and potential of this particular AI engine.

—

GROANS

RED BULL: When I saw this spot come on, I immediately recognized the illustration style, and the classic setup. Boy penguin says to his father “I figured out how to fly!” Dad, suspicious, says “oh…really? And how exactly are we going to do that?” The boy responds that all they have to do is drink Red Bull, and they’ll be able to fly because, after all, Red Bull gives you wiiiiings. Up to this moment, this is a typical Red Bull spot. But then, the boy can’t fly, because the Red Bull he attempts to drink is frozen. (They’re penguins and it’s 40 below zero, according to Dad.) So…the product doesn’t work. The benefit is never realized. And we’re all disappointed. They try to make us think they’re in on the joke, because the voiceover says Red Bull gives you wings, “but only if you drink it.” No. No. No. Don’t do that.

SQUARESPACE: Look, I get that it’s hard to sell tech enablement as a Super Bowl spot. Squarespace is a platform that helps do-it-yourself-ers build and maintain their own websites. Last year, they tried aliens…with Martin Scorsese directing and starring in the spot. The year before that, it was an obtuse take on “the singularity” with Adam Driver. In 2022, they actually made a really GOOD spot with Zendaya, who portrayed Sally, who sold (you guessed it,) seashells by the seashore. That spot followed a simple narrative. Sally was not doing well. Then, she built a website with Squarespace, and things really took off! That’s generally how we like to portray our brands in our advertising: as aids in the hero’s cause.

This year, however, we have actor Barry Keoghan (the guy who went full frontal in Saltburn,) riding a mule through the Irish countryside, whipping laptops at people like a sedated and psychotic newspaper delivery boy. But they’re laptops! And they’re dangerous! And one smashes through the window of a pub. (Also, and even stranger, hardly anyone reacts to any of these near-death assaults.) And how, exactly, does this connect me to any understanding of their basic offering? Most Americans could hardly make out the brogue, let alone the value proposition.  

COFFEE MATE: So, let’s give props to Coffee Mate for shelling out the almost $8 million dollars and producing their first-ever Super Bowl ad! (Applause.) Aaaaand…let’s give it up for Shania Twain writing and producing a new song specifically for the commercial. Yay.

However, that song starts with the lyric “let’s go tongues.” And the young man in the ad, who has just had a taste of cold foam after adding it to his cold brew coffee (I guess?) goes into a trance, where his tongue (yes, you heard me right,) does various dances, makes heart shapes, plays the chimes, high-tongues (I just wrote that) the Coffee Mate logo, and then – are you sitting down? Jumps out of his mouth. And spins around in the air while fireworks go off, and then plunges back into the young man’s mouth as he awakes from this fantasy. Just as a reminder, we’re talking about his TONGUE!

Then the young man and his pal start chugging (question mark) the Coffee Mate foam together, as we cut to the closing shot of the line “a little foam a lotta fun” spelled out in, you guessed it, foam! I could have lived a very full life without having seen that. And hopefully, I never will again.

So…what were your favorites? Let me know in the comments.

You want good* advertising? You won’t find it in the election media blitz.

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Don’t you just love advertising in presidential election years? Aggressive, repetitive, and often un-creative ads in every commercial pod, whether you’re watching football, soap operas, or game shows. ‘Tis the season to be mud-slinging.

In the general election, The New York Times has reported that more than $500 million will be spent by the Harris and Trump campaigns, and that the Super PAC supporting Harris will pour $187 million into television and radio alone in the final 49 days. I’m not great at math, but that’s almost $4 million PER DAY from September 17th through November 5th. That’s not counting digital, social, texting, robo-calls, and whatever else each campaign’s AI-driven algorithms are cooking up.

But what about the ads themselves? Is there any tangible messaging going on beyond the “don’t vote for the other team, because they’re terrible” tropes? Sadly, not much.

The Trump campaign has struck gold with one spot called “They/Them” that’s running ad nauseam across cable networks, which focuses on a (decontextualized) message about Harris supporting gender reassignment in prisons, with the implication that American taxpayers are footing the bill. It ends with the line, “Kamala’s agenda is they/them. Not you.” However you feel about the issue and the message, (and the malevolent editing,) you gotta admit that’s a darn strong line to punctuate the spot. It’s creative and pithy, and rings a potent dog whistle for conservatives who bristle at all things trans.

Harris fires back with a spot focused on Trump and his anti-abortion influence, and his implicit ties to the mercurial Project 2025. The spot is called “Who He Is,” and is (again) focused on her opponent, and his previous (and likely future) inclinations as it relates to national policy.  The compelling aspect of this spot is that none of it is conjecture – Harris is highlighting actual changes that were affected during Trump’s actual presidency. It invites the viewer to draw their own conclusion (and the creative directors are betting on this,) that “if he did it before, he’ll do it again.”

So, what’s wrong with this advertising? Some would argue that the ads are fine, claim “that’s just what they do,” and that politics simply brings out the worst in strategists and creative directors. Hey, it’s a limited run, so attack, attack, attack, and it’s definitely rated R for rubbing just about everyone the wrong way.

But that isn’t the way most brands compete, is it? Most brands want to use the precious time they have with the consumer to connect to something positive, and special, and DIFFERENT about that brand. Most brands want to say good things (about themselves,) and let the consumer draw their preferences from there. Geico, as an almost on-par example, (they spend almost $3 million per day in advertising year-round,) doesn’t spend their time shitting on Allstate or State Farm. They use that time and all that money to drill simple, memorable messages into consumers’ minds: 15 minutes could save you 15% or more; so easy a Caveman could do it; etc.

Some strategists argue that you should NEVER mention your competition in your ads, because you’re essentially using YOUR media budget to promote THEM (to some degree.) Tell that to Coke v. Pepsi, or McDonald’s v. Burger King, or Apple v. PC. There are exceptions to every rule.

But marketing IS a conversation, and a campaign is an extended conversation that happens in short spurts over long periods of time. Brands use 15 or 30 or 60 seconds to get you to think something, believe something, and maybe even to do something over the course of several months or more. If they spend all their time talking about the other brands, what would you think about them? And more importantly, would you think about them at all?

That’s what’s disappointing about this unprecedented time in marketing history. The most money ever spent on presidential campaign advertising, and all we’re doing is rejecting the rules that all of us are taught about advertising, especially about being memorable, and about never misleading your audience.

I think we can do better. And I’m looking forward to November 6th, when we can go back to talking lizards, bunnies banging drums, and people getting their hands stuck inside potato chip containers. Ain’t advertising great?