Selling Air

Did the Madison school district need a new logo? Did Cracker Barrel need a fresh look?

Of course not. And creating new logos was needless, expensive and ultimately counter-productive. But it’s easier and cheaper to rearrange the deck chairs than it is to have enough life boats.

The school district should be getting justifiably hammered (since I don’t go in much for social media, I don’t know if they are being hammered) for blowing $100,000 on an out of state consulting firm to come up with its new log after pleading poverty with the taxpayers and getting them to cough up another $600 million in referenda passed in November. And that comes not long after the district redesigned all of its high school logos — something nobody asked for and again was unpopular. For a school district they sure are slow learners. It’s literally true that they could have asked a high school art class to come up with something. It would have been better and they could have compensated them with pizza.

And Cracker Barrel was forced into rapid retreat by its customers after it retired the old codger on its iconic (I guess it’s iconic if you’re really into Cracker Barrel) logo and replaced it with a more modern and boring image.

Most of us don’t think about logos as we’ve got, you know, lives to lead. But there’s a world out there, mostly populated by consultants who make a good living doing this stuff, where “branding” is equated with substance. But it’s not substantive. What they’re selling is air.

In Cracker Barrel’s case it’s their money, so the company can be profligate if they want. But you have to ask yourself what the heck they were thinking. They were so out of touch with their loyal customer base that they didn’t see this coming? They committed this unforced error because somebody in the marketing department with little else to do sold the corner office on a pointless revamp.

MMSD’s case is much more infuriating. This is a district with lagging test scores, high truancy rates and lots of police calls and this is what they’re spending time and money on? And it’s the taxpayers’ money that they’re incinerating. What they’re doing is trying to create a new image without improving the substance. It’s like painting a house with a rotten foundation and a sagging roof. It’s pigs and lipstick.

But the idolization of branding and the hegemony of marketing departments is also a broader problem in our society. With apologies to Andre Agassi image is not everything. In fact, it’s not anything.

On another subject… I’m going to take some time before commenting on the horrible murder of Charlie Kirk. For three reasons. The first is that I have nothing interesting to say about it beyond the obvious: it was horrible, unacceptable and I hope the killer is soon found and brought to justice. Second, before Wednesday afternoon I had never heard of Charlie Kirk. I need to learn more about him. And third, until a suspect is identified we don’t know what the motivation was for the killing. It was a gruesome murder. Beyond that let’s learn more before commenting.

Have a good weekend.