The Grayification of Fast Food Brands

Transcript

Alright, what's going on everybody? Welcome to You’re Not The Audience.

I'm your host, Creative Director Calvin. I'm the Creative Director at Parliament. We are a brand strategy and creative strategy company in Portland, Oregon. And man, I am super excited about today. I think today is going to be great. Let me know if the audio all sounds good and okay and everything. I think the stream is going to go a little smoother than the last one, got the kinks worked out.

But yeah, I think I am super excited about today. I think we're going to talk a lot about fast food brands, where they started, where they have gone, how boring they've become, and how they've all become inhuman tech corporations all at the same time.

I think that's going to be really fun. We've already got, in the chat, there's no need to say, White Castle is favorite fast food. I mean, yeah, the little burgers. There's a little restaurant here in Portland called Canard that makes a fancy version of basically a White Castle steam burger, and it is the most mind-blowing little tiny burger you've ever had. It is so good. So good.

And you can just order like a platter of a dozen of them. It's great. All right, so today we're just gonna, we're gonna normal episode. We're gonna start off with just a couple little news things. It's pretty light news week. We are heads down a lot this week at Parliament. Then we're gonna talk about a lot of things that sound like buzzwords. We're gonna talk about heritage, timelessness,

Companies that are like advertising rather than brand building, putting short-term profits ahead of long-term brand gains, and then we're going to talk about world-building again. We did a lot of world-building discussion last week when we talked about metal bands. World-building is huge in the fast food space. And we're going to talk about joy, inshitification, grayification, all of that kind of stuff.

Oh, Nick, the KFC Double Down, that's a good, that is a good fast food. I was at KFC the day that came out. Truly, innovation in food.

Okay, news and parliament news, I mean most important news, today is my birthday, so I'm choosing to be here with all of you, this is a great way of spending it, so please tell me happy birthday and remind me that 41 is not too old.

And other news for Parliament. We spent some time last week with our friends at Netlify. They have a little Portland office here, so we met up with them to dig into more brand work. And then we went and got little cocktails at a bar called The End here in Portland. Some good kind of tiki vibe cocktails. A few martinis.

And our other big news thing, we did this last year, and we loved it, and so we are officially planning our second annual Caddyshack tournament, which is our golf tournament that we do for everyone who works at Parliament, close friends, freelancers, and stuff like that. We are all terrible athletes. Well, some of us are okay. I think every time we've ever done a golf tournament in the past, my team has been in last place, so that kind of gives you an idea of where I'm at.

But we're going to do that again. We always design some merch and swag. I think we're doing it in July sometime. So I've got to get on whipping together some cheesy golf gear. And last year we did like...

We did like little Ts and ball markers and stuff like that. It was really fun. We made the mistake though of putting the year on it. Don't do this. Don't put the year when you create a ton of swag because now we all have a bunch of gear that says Caddyshack 2025 and we can't use it this year. We can't. So we got to make all new stuff. Oh.

Deborah here said, kind of none about their favorite fast foods because taquerias exist. Oh, absolutely. That's literally my whole plan today is for my birthday is just go get tacos in the sun. It's beautiful and sunny in Portland today. And so that's all I'm doing. Tacos in the sun. Oh, Sarah. Thank you. I am an old man. I'm trying to keep it together.

Okay, I think let's get into it. I think that's all we got for news. I'm probably forgetting something. I feel like it's been a really, really heads down time at Parliament the last couple weeks, which is good. Busy is good. I love it. So we're lucky to be in that space. All right, let's talk fast food.

So the reason I want to talk about this and why I actually care a lot about what fast food brands do is I grew up a really poor kid. We grew up in small town Washington.

We didn't have a lot of excess money and like a fancy night was going to McDonald's or going and getting something from Dairy Queen, which I don't mean, Dairy Queen has just been so sad for so long, I don't even think we're going to talk about Dairy Queen.

But so all of those places have just like always been ingrained in my mind as like these special places to go out as an excursion with your family, even when your family was as odd as mine. And it just felt like a really special place. And so I've always had this soft spot for just like the classic cheeseburger, the like goofy environment, all of the like things that come with that.

And the reason I want to talk about it is a lot of that stuff that I think made fast food brands interesting has been just...

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So that's why, like, to see that all go away, to see all these places turn sad and gray and shitify themselves is just such a bummer. But let's start talking with kind of like some of the aspects that I see where they've gone wrong, things they've turned away from. So first, let's just talk about like the, I think there's like buzzwords that surround this stuff of like heritage and timelessness.

So what are heritage and timelessness? What are these things? So when we talk about heritage, all of these companies I'm talking about, like McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, all of these places that do fast food, they all have this incredibly long history and heritage. And that heritage is like, it's the true history and soul and the symbols and messaging and all the products that made that brand matter originally.

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is usually about like returning to the original way of doing things the things that actually worked for you before because that's where your grandest deepest most impactful moment of belief is for your brand so when they turn away from that and you can really really feel it because it just feels forced and fake

And a little soulless. I mean, so, okay. Gabrielle brought up Taco Bell in the chat. Oh, dang, let's look at some Taco Bell stuff really fast. I mean, I think, like, it's hard to remember that... Hard to remember that... Oh, let's see. Uh-oh, my screen's not working here really fast. Let me see why this isn't working. I'll try to...

Alright, you're going to see me try to fix this while we're doing it. Of course, there's always something that has to come up, right? Let's... We're going to do it live. There we go. Alright, now everyone should be seeing some beautiful Taco Bell.

So, I mean, I feel like we all kind of just forgotten now that this is what Taco Bell looked like. There's some folks, there's a guy on like a sub stack or something like that, that's done some great collections of Taco Bell histories, of Pizza Hut histories. This is pulled from him. I've got a link down below.

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This is just such a unique look. It's so colorful. No one like went in on this. And now this is like a big exciting announcement that Taco Bell just put out. This right here. They're like, it's the Taco Bell of the future. And it just looks like sad corporate office, all history removed. It is completely like universal design to like a degree where it is just absolutely soulless.

Yeah, yeah, they're called the Arizona Sunset Interiors. That's great. So now they're looking like this, and it's just the saddest thing ever. So that's what I'm talking about when I'm specifically talking about like, there is obviously some bit of heritage that just got lost here.

and so some other signs of this where we start seeing like a lot of these brands started turning to uh oh aaron said taco bell modern vineyard and wine tasting oh that's so good that's absolutely what it is it's like generic soulless wine tasting room um

Okay, so what are some signs that started adding up to this just absolute soullessness of a lot of fast food brands? So I think a lot of them started focusing on rather than building brands, a lot of fast food companies really started just becoming advertising machines. So it wasn't about building that brand further. It was just all about focusing on chasing trends rather than establishing who they are.

And the problem with that is like you only chase trends to acquire short-term social attention. Man, are we in an attention economy right now or what? But...

And you even see this in some ways where all of their social media accounts have become this goofy, generic jester messaging. Even when their brands aren't necessarily a jester, they've all become a jester. You see Burger King poking fun at McDonald's, at Taco Bell, and they just have this...

Like, they're trying to do the thing where they're like trying to speak the language of the internet rather than trying to speak the language of themselves. And it's fun for like little blips, but it just eventually goes away over time. And I mean, probably the cause behind this is just the classic like boardroom talks about short-term profit. Boardrooms never like to admit that they focus on short-term profits, but they definitely do.

And... Oh, Gab. Gab says, maybe they fell apart when no one had to rely on Taco Bell as a weed source anymore. Hey, they were doing God's work, you know, doing important work for us all. I mean, I hope everyone here still does the occasional, like, 2am Taco Bell run. Even though it's sad, you just still have to do it occasionally, right?

So, I mean, now, a lot of all the things they do, even their, like, food innovations, their advertising, it's all just focused on, like, just turning the whole industry into all about maximum efficiency, technical progress, focusing on their short-term profits, and rather than investing in some long-term plan that carves a niche for them, like, within their own culture, they just start imitating everyone else.

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And I think that was really smart of them, and they'd kind of gone away from it, and it fell by the side. They had this rare moment where they rediscovered who they were, and I don't know who did the brand and ad work for them, but good job, you got them back to where they should have been. And the downside of that, then, is that you're just throwing away timelessness.

And it's really hard to get timelessness back. And I talked earlier, you know, timelessness is this generic buzzword that shows up in branding meetings and things all the time. But it is a real thing. It's hard to justify. It's hard to explain. It's hard to find. And you can't really create it because just timelessness just takes time.

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Oh yeah, there's no need to say, it says fourth meal. We all need a fourth meal. Maybe some elevensies? Some elevensies? Fourth meal? Okay, so they're throwing away timelessness.

That's just like, mistake number one. Don't do it. If you've got that heritage, that equity, all of that history behind you, just, please, dear God, just invest in it. So, one other thing that I think is kind of a casualty of this efficiency mindset that I think probably a lot of the boardrooms and a lot of the brand teams are doing during this is

Focusing on efficiency starts absolutely destroying your world building and your moments of joy within your brand. And fast food companies, just some of them were just absolutely legendary at world building. And when I'm talking about world building, I'm talking about all those little things that are just along the periphery of your brand that

that don't necessarily make it into like the early pages of your brand book but they're all the fun stuff they're the deep exploration that people can do to discover more about you and i mean no place did this better than uh good old good old mcdonald's here

I mean, McDonald's was, McDonald's nailed world building and joy in a way that I just think few have. I think when I'm talking about world building this way, I also include a link to this down below. These are murals from some, these are murals from McDonald's in Washington State, all by this one artist named Wes Cook, Cable Sasser from Panic Software.

Did this amazing deep dive into this artist, these murals, how he discovered all them. And this is the stuff that creates world building. And McDonald's was great at it. We had Ronald, we had Grimace, we had Hamburglar. And all of those little things create like sticky moments that we'll never forget. That creates a world that we can fall into.

Yeah, Sarah says, RIP the good times in the McDonald's Play Place. Yeah, look at this. The Play Place, just incredible. I'm just sad that they won't let adults in it. By the way, this article that Cable Sasser wrote is just full of tons of gems from, like, the heyday of McDonald's. There's even the leftover Nintendo 64 setups that they had here.

And for some reason, just sitting there, look how dusty that thing is. It's barely been messed with, but it is such a gem. That was such an amazing time. So, that is a great example of world building in these fast food brands. And I think what a lot of places forget...

When, a lot of people forget when you are creating an interior space or a physical experience, the whole goal of that is to invite people into a new world unlike any world they've been before, or any world they regularly exist. It is, it's creating a space where they give you permission to be someone else, to enjoy something else that you wouldn't normally, to do something else you wouldn't do normally.

And that is what all of these spaces were very good at. You get the play place, you get to take your kids there, you get to be a kid there, and play in a way that you wouldn't normally get to. You get to play the Nintendo 64, you get to go to Taco Bell and exist and have your tacos in this place that doesn't look like what your house looks like. Completely different, memorable experience.

But all of those places have become these corporate gray boxes now. Every single one looks like it's meant to be like some tech company's headquarters as opposed to an actual fast food place where you enjoy a nice little cheeseburger. Also, just the fact that, what happened to mascots? I just mentioned earlier, Burger King brought back the king, or made the king kind of like an actual character.

And god, I hope we get back to an era of mascots. I think we're close. I think mascots are so good at just instantly creating this whole world building. We talked last week about how we've created some mascots essentially for Rainier beer, like canned off the gold, and we use the wild Rainiers, you know, the roaming bottles that are kind of like deer, but they're replaced with beer cans and beer bottles.

all of those things add up to a world that people get excited about and it creates a world that people actually want to explore so that move to maximum efficiency like you have to cut out complex and nuanced brand worlds because those distract people and there's no more world building there's no more lore there's only dollars

And once you start doing that, though, it works. It definitely works. It improves profits, and that's great, especially as a brand person. Like, my job as usually a person as a brand is to ensure a way that the company keeps existing and making profit.

I like that. Profit is okay. But when you do it at the expense of destroying joy, that is a big problem because joy is such a powerful thing for fast food brands. So they've started optimizing away joy. And so why is that a problem? I mean, even just in here, in the comments...

Everyone's got, like, these, like, little tiny memories of moments in fast food places that you just, like, you can't, you can't get that experience at them anymore. Okay, so let's talk about optimizing away joy. I think there is, I feel like, let me think of the exact way I want to put this.

I think a brand that focuses on optimization is often at the complete opposite point of creating joy. Optimization is the antithesis of joy. And the reason I say that is because joy takes time. It takes time to kind of like swell. It takes time to feel it.

And time is not on our side when we just want maximum profit. And I think we also just have this idea that joy is frivolous, but joy is also just beautifully important. It's actually the moments we don't forget. When you share joy with other people, it's just one of the greatest unifiers of mankind.

And so when you go into a McDonald's now, or you go into any of these stores where you actually aren't even greeted by a person, you're greeted by a screen where you order on screen. I know a lot of people say they enjoy that because it cuts out the human experience. That's fine for that person. But that is very bad from a brand perspective because nothing about that experience is...

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I haven't talked about nostalgia during this. I think of heritage and nostalgia as being essentially kind of the same thing. I think heritage, in my mind, is nostalgia weaponized for the future. So, I think that's kind of how...

How I think that heritage and that nostalgia can actually be morphed into something for the future. You go back, you look at all those symbols, at all that old messaging, and you can use that as a strength. Aaron says I'm going to quote that. Oh, good, I already forgot what I said. Something about weaponizing.

Okay, so I mean, like, I think that is that is the difficult part is like, they're just getting rid of joy. Like when they're doing this, like, cool, you can order a Coke and you can add some vanilla, you can add some cherry to it. It's a very hyper specific personalized experience. But nowhere during that experience did I feel like somebody actually helped me do that. No one actually was like, here, let me provide the service for you. And so

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Everyone kinda does the same thing. I mean, everyone's got their preference. McDonald's, Wendy's, Jack in the Box, whatever, like, but they're all in the cheeseburger business, you know? Or in Jack in the Box, the really terrible deep-fried taco business. And I think that those...

When you share such similarity in products, if you don't take a chance to stand out and make your distinction in all the other millions of complex and nuanced ways you could, you're just really dropping the ball, and then people fall out of love with your brand. Sure, you're maximizing profits, but for how long? And I think that's a thing that feels like they've all lost track of.

Some of this stuff does make me feel like I'm just old man screaming at cloud. I am 41 today, so I mean, maybe I'm officially old man screaming at cloud age. But I think one thing that they have all lost sight of on this is just the idea of customer service as a pillar of your brand.

So in the hospitality world, whether it's fast food, restaurants, bars, whatever...

Customer service is actually your number one communication point and your number one experience with a customer. That is most important. So when you're giving that up to a machine when you walk in, you're just removing your most impactful touchpoint. Sure, you can do commercials during the Super Bowl, or you can do your mediocre jokes on social media.

But they all lack, or they all just have like a fraction of the power of like a real person greeting you when you come to your place. So I think just in that kind of bloodthirsty hunt for money, all these boardrooms and the brand studios that are working for them have gotten that service is an essential part of that. Service is an essential part for all hospitality brands. And especially when you're...

Especially when you're creating a lot of the same types of products. Oh yeah, Gab says here, keep thinking about how Cracker Barrel tried to scrape off all the illustrations from their menus, but then their fans lost their shit until Cracker Barrel brought it back. Oh god, yeah, that Cracker Barrel rebrand. Normally I don't like this, like...

I don't love this world of design commentary about specific brand things like that and the way that they blow up to be a fervor. A lot of the time it's like fine.

And we don't understand the reasons that got them there or the decisions that got them there. I mean, I know I've definitely worked on brands where there's probably a lot of decisions that I've made that customers don't understand, but eventually they do. But dang, that Cracker Barrel one was just an embarrassing dropping of a ball there. So yeah, customer service as branding, I think that's super important.

And what they have, I think there's also just something of where they have taken that a little too far is then just by making, the problem with it is it just creates an interesting dynamic in the restaurants too then of like, you're no longer being served by the people who work there. You're no longer getting this like shared human experience. Instead, this just turns all the employees there into just factory workers shuffling out food for you.

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various gig apps of like doordash postmates all those things i think that's dramatically changed the way that we interact with a lot of fast food but i don't understand why in your then actual physical space you'd almost replicate that exact same experience when you have a chance to provide joy okay that's a lot of talking about this stuff uh

Is there anyone out there who's like, anyone in chat, who do you think's doing some good stuff right now in the fast food space? Let's talk about a few good things. I need a little bit of joy after all of this. Because, I mean, I think there's, the one that still bums me out the most, honestly, in all of this, is Taco Bell. Because, I mean, Taco Bell is just, I mean, look at all this stuff. Taco Bell has had such...

A great, beautiful history. This is all, this guy, what's his name, Rolando, does all of these posts about classic old places. He also did the Pizza Hut one, and he did this Taco Bell one. And this just breaks my heart because there's so much charm embedded in everything until the last, you know, 10 to 20 years.

And I think it's also the fact that Taco Bell is, like, their food innovation is insane. Like, absolutely unhinged in a way that I think no other fast food company is willing to go for. So, like, their brand has become...

Like, absurd food creation, which I think that's actually great. Like, why doesn't the rest of their brand experience, their store experience, why doesn't that match that same level of imagination and fantasy and absurdity? Yeah, these are great.

See, this is where I pulled photos from. Just look at these. Arizona sunset. I want my house to look like this. Sorry, Sarah, we're redecorating our house. It's going to look like a 1980s Taco Bell. Yeah, there's no need to say it says...

McDonald's is doing good stuff with activation experiences. I think it's probably right. I think that is the hard part about this, is that I think these brands are maybe doing interesting things on the fringes of their brand, but it's mostly an advertising-related thing, and they aren't bringing it into the core of their brand.

Okay, so, who's doing it right? We've got, there also said Pizza Hut. Oh, I've got Pizza Hut in here. I think Pizza Hut is doing some incredible stuff right now. So, Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut sucked for a long time. It probably still sucks. I don't know. People have preferences in the great fight and battle against Domino's and Pizza Hut.

Domino's has fully become a soulless tech corporation. You can even just, I think maybe you can do this at pizza too, I think, but you can even see a tracker of where your pizza is in the cooking process. Honestly, kind of awesome. But then you go into a Domino's and it is just the saddest experience. You just like go pick it up. They hand it to you, missing all those points of joy that they could be having.

But Pizza Hut, Pizza Hut started a recent thing. I think I've got some stuff open here. Pizza Hut recently started bringing back Pizza Hut Classic. And Pizza Hut Classic is them just going back to what they did. This is that heritage play I was talking about. This is them weaponizing nostalgia.

So they've started recreating the classic Pizza Huts that we all remember. The building, the Tiffany-style lamps, the tablecloths, all of those little details make up this bigger world that we love at Pizza Hut. And it's been so good. I mean, I think there's 100 or 200 of these Pizza Huts now. Not on the West Coast, unfortunately.

But they've started bringing back the classic red roof that looks like the Pizza Hut that we all know. There's even this great New York Times article about it, showing really nice interiors. I think these were all shot by Noah Kalina, too, which is a charming thing if you're of a certain 2000s era of tech nerd and photography nerd. We all know Noah Kalina.

And they've, like, brought back these classic old photos. I think this is, this right here is absolute geek, like, fast food brand. Because, like, we don't think of pizza as fast food a lot. Absolutely is. And they're doing it right in every way. They're mining their history. They aren't doing anything crazy. They're not like, let's reimagine it. Like, no. They're like, let's just take what made us popular, what everyone thinks of, and clean it up and do it right.

It's absolutely incredible how they're doing it. Like they've even got the salad bar and who doesn't love a salad bar? Let's bring back salad bars. But I think that's their one place that's doing it incredibly. I mean, the pizza looks fine. It's totally fine pizza. But I think this is really smart.

There's no need to say, it says, has it started rolling out or is it still just talk? It has started rolling out. They're like East Coast and Midwest. I think there's like 150 or 100 Pizza Hut classics somewhere in there. So they're popping up and just haven't made it to the West Coast yet.

And honestly, I hope they do, because I love that this is so smart of them, because we often think of Domino's and Pizza Hut in parody, because they've both been around a long time. They do a very similar type of product. And this is what I'm talking about, where Domino's has gone fully tech company. They're all about maximum efficiency, crank out pizzas, make it cheap. And at some point, Pizza Hut was trying to meet them in parody there.

And obviously not working, so it's time for them to kind of carve their own space and make themselves distinct. So they went back to what we actually all think of as pizzerias. And I think they absolutely nailed it. And I hope it pays off well for them. I mean, look at this. This is so great. This is what you think of when you think of Pizza Hut. So good.

Gab says, I was missing the novelty of the buffet and salad bar with you while you're talking about the novelty of experience. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, a salad bar is such a good example of an experience that, like...

Nobody wrote, like, really, like, at first thought, nobody romanticizes the idea of a salad bar, but then if you go to a place like this, where you're with your family, you're with your kids, it has this kind of vibe, you are so ecstatic about a salad bar. Like, I'm gonna eat so many baby corn if I go there. Yeah, the lights in Pizza Hut, I think they're doing an incredible job.

That's great. I mean, I think another place... Oh, here, I pulled this... Let me show you what the exteriors look like. It's a great shot of the exterior. Just absolute perfection. Every Pizza Hut needs to look like that immediately. They're...

And so I think this is just like, it's such a unique shape of a building. It's insane that they wouldn't just keep doubling down on this and they haven't for decades. And the fact they're bringing it back, such a smart brand decision. Okay, one other place that I think...

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They have a very consistent look. They always stick with it. It's not the most thrilling looking exterior, but you know it. They use the arrow, they use the lights, they use the little palm tree banner everywhere. So, super consistent, always good. And In-N-Out centered themselves as being, yes, they are just a really good, straightforward burger place.

The ingredients are good, usually local, and they kind of turned themselves into the essential California experience. If you are not from California and you go there, you know you have to get in and out. They have consciously kind of just doubled down on that. It is the California burger joint.

And so I think they're always doing incredible. They pay their people well. They understand the power of service. Everyone is super nice, generous. As far as I know, no screens have shown up at In-N-Out Burgers. Please, dear God, do not correct me in that. I don't want to think that's a possibility. But I think one challenge that In-N-Out faces right now is that

They are expanding beyond California. They've started popping up here around Portland. They're going a little bit outside of their region. And I'm curious what that does. Oh, Aaron says they don't seem to mind wearing the paper hats. I mean, if you can convince your employees to wear those paper hats and everyone seems joyous while you're there, impressive. That means you're doing something right as a company.

So yeah, so In-N-Out is expanding beyond the region that they have kind of claimed. And I'm curious to see how they handle that as a brand, where we are the essential California experience in Portland, Oregon. Like, does that translate? And so I think they're going to have a little bit of a, I think just kind of a little inflection point of,

Are we actually who we say we are? And as the more they expand, it also starts cutting into this idea that they're like a mom and pop large fast food chain, and that they can use local ingredients, and all of that stuff starts kind of coming into the question.

Sarah says, we long to pretend we're in California. I mean, dear God, most of the year in Portland, I definitely dream of being in California. That sounds much nicer than the gray here.

But I do think there is something about that, that if they tap into that and keep doing that, like provide the service, keep the food local, keep your employees happy, bring those moments of joy, keep the secret menu items. That is like a huge part of the world building of In-N-Out that like they have that whole like, if you know, you know, kind of aspect.

And if they can communicate this idea that you are getting this like classic California drive-in experience and they can do that in other states, they win. And I think they create such a huge market for themselves if they just keep focusing on that. Let all the other brands become boring tech companies and they get to then own a California attitude with customer service and joy combined in.

So I think they're doing it great. I think they could have some challenges coming up. This is also a reminder to me how long it's been since I have had an In-N-Out burger. All of us at Parliament just went down to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago for meetings with Netlify, our very nice clients down there. I don't know what the state of In-N-Out in San Francisco is.

Oh, I guess there's one, I think there's one down on the Barcadero or something like that, or somewhere down there. I think I've stumbled, I think I've gotten the full San Francisco experience by walking from an In-N-Out into a blue bottle. I think that's all you need to do to experience all of San Francisco now, right?

Oh, Sarah says birthday lunch for me today. Apparently they have an In-N-Out in Vancouver, Washington. See, it's hard, I'm not gonna lie, it's hard to be like, you're gonna have this essential California experience in Vancouver, Washington. Knockoff of Vancouver, BC. Okay, so I mean, I think that covers a lot of bases today. So we talked about heritage and timelessness.

The idea that we can use our history to mine for all those memorable symbols, that messaging, all those products that made us matter originally. The trap of focusing on advertising versus brand building. When you're focusing on just advertising, you're just chasing trends and social attention, which doesn't bolster your brand further.

How short-term profits and maximum efficiency can sacrifice joy and all of that world-building.

Because if you're focusing on cutting out all of the like frivolous moments that create nuance and complexity, the first things to get cut are all of that elaborate world building, all those little moments of joy, all the moments to connect with mascots that have been tried and true in your brand or your employees which provide joy. And I think just...

I think a lot of, like, my problem with all of these, that, I mean, there's the tech and shitification, the removal of, like, that personal human element with these, but I think the thing that makes it me the saddest is that

So many of these had such deep worlds to explore, even if it was Taco Bell with their Chihuahua commercials, which are questionable, but...

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shared thematic experience and i think that's just gone i think that's what they have removed and i think that's maybe the biggest loss of all is just fast food brands have cut out world building they've cut out lore they've cut out anything worth exploring no need to say says i want taco bell all right

I think that, I agree. Maybe we just all need a Taco Bell day. But, sweet. I mean, I think that kind of covers a lot of what I wanted to go through today. Anyone have any fun thoughts in the chat?

Thanks to some other folks who've jumped in. What's everyone's favorite, absolute favorite, uh, fast food item? I think mine, honestly. I think my favorite fast food item... It's funny because I don't ever... I don't ever go there, really, but I was like, it probably just is the classic McDonald's cheeseburger. It's just no frills, simple, I love it, and...

Get the weird little bun. So good. There's a cheesy gordita crunch. Oh, cheesy gordita crunch. Yeah, that's what you call food innovation. It's just, let's take every ingredient we have back in the kitchen and find a way to combine it into one. They're good. Oh, there's nothing to say. It says, favorite most memorable mascot.

I mean, I feel like Hamburglar, that was like, that was number one mascot. I feel like Hamburglar, if you're like, if you're like me, where you're like a jaded little teen, you're like, yeah, the Hamburglar is cool. He steals the burgers.

Oh, Gabe says, uh, spend a lot of time thinking about both Wendy's OG Frosty and the old A&W Freeze. Oh, Frosties. Frosties are so good. That was, uh...

It was a very, I used to go and stay at my grandma's house every other weekend, and we would always get either a Frosty at Wendy's or a dipped cone at Dairy Queen. That was, like, our tradition. And so, like, that's the stuff that, and, like, we would go inside, we would talk to the people there, we'd get our things, we'd leave out, and, like, that's the stuff we're missing. Like, I don't only just think of, like...

I don't always just think of the Frosty. I think of going there with my grandma, you know, like one of the most important people in my life. And that's like what that world does when you're willing to kind of lean in to all the like customer joy is that it's not them. It's like you're helping your customers create a memory there, not just about your food. And so it's great.

Oh, Nick says, frosties have turned into blizzards? They're adding all kinds of shit to them now? Oh, no. See? That's just, that's a perfect example of, like, what are they doing? Why? No, let the frosty be a frosty. That's such a mistake. Oh, man. It says, uh, Wendy's is about my grandpa. My G-pa. No seeds on buns. Yeah.

Oh, the Noid. I forgot about the Noid.

Oh yeah the only thing the frosty should be uh is to dip your fry in it yeah absolutely like that is that is like the reason you go to wendy's i guess i'm sarah on here has like a big she's really got a soft spot for the uh the wendy's spicy nuggets they're good as far as fast food nut goes but i feel like that is the true wendy's experience of like their fries pretty good dipped in the frosty you're done that's great that's all you need that's the only meal you need

Alright, I think that's it for today. We covered a lot of stuff. Let's bring mascots back. I'm ready. Parliament, let's create some mascots for some companies. I think it's time. I think it's time. We're, like...

Millennial branding is dead. That's like, I think we're at the end of millennial branding where you just kind of take a generic product and make it look nice and then sell it to everyone. I think it's time we bring back this next era is the era of mascots again. Let's do it. Yep, Sarah says mascot for parliament. We do need a mascot for parliament. We had an eagle for a long time. We kind of cut it out of the brand. We need to follow my advice I'm giving now and go back to our old symbols.

Sweet! I mean, that was great. I love fast food. One complaint about fast food, no one's doing great hot dogs out there. I wish hot dogs were more of a common thing than fast food. I'd love that. And I think next week? I haven't exactly settled on next week about what I want to talk about.

I've got a couple. If any of these sounds super exciting...

I think I do want to have a do an episode about kind of the death of millennial branding, which I just mentioned was like millennial branding. The idea of like all of those different things are like we're going to do a mattresses, but make them look presentable and buy direct direct from or direct to consumer. And so I've been interested in how we're moving away from that millennial branding style and what's next.

The other one I've been interested in because we're in such a big changing point and inflection point for beer and spirits is talking about like how craft beer is dying, but then also how some are doing great. So right now it just says craft beer is dead, long live craft beer. That's my note for it.

So, I'm definitely interested in talking about craft beer, and since we've done a lot of work with, like, Rainier beer, which is not craft beer, uh, but it is great beer, and we've done some work for, like, Fremont Brewing, which is definitely craft beer, I think there's some stuff to dig in there, so maybe we'll do that next week. Craft beer, talk about beer next week, sound good to folks? I like beer. It's my birthday, why aren't I drinking a beer right now? Oh, Gabe, Wienerschnitzel die.

I assume they've still got to do it. Oh, don't worry. We'll talk about, okay, let's talk beer next week. I think that sounds great. Beer will be good. Gabe asked, make good NA mainstream. I love it. I'm as they call it, a zebra striper. I'll have a whiskey and then an NA beer and then a whiskey and an NA beer. That's my preferred way to drink these days.

So I love NA beers a lot. All right, let's talk about beer next week.

Okay, I think let's call it for the day. It's almost one o'clock. I gotta go eat some lunch. This is great. I love talking about fast food with y'all. This is very fun. So next week we'll talk beer, probably some spirits as well. I guess, should I end with the classic, do all the classic YouTube stuff? Like, subscribe, tell your mom about us. She'll love this stream.

So I'll see you same time next week, noon Pacific time. We'll cuss about beer. We'll have a good time. Prepare your chats about what your favorite beer is, all those things. And somebody try to convince me why a blueberry cupcake pastry hazy double IPA is good.

All right. Thanks, everyone. See you next Thursday.