9. Fast Four: Brand Backlash, Bot Wars, & Heists in the Headlines

On this week’s Fast Four episode, Reputation Nation hosts Anne Marie Malecha and Stacy Bratcher break down the Cracker Barrel rebrand backlash and why monitoring and mitigating online bot-driven narratives matters more than ever. They move through the Louvre jewel heist’s operational fallout, what Twitch’s federal defamation suit could mean for creators, and how Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau’s headline-grabbing romance could be a reputation reset for both public figures. Expect the unexpected, get crisis-ready, and learn why having the right advisors in place before a crisis hits can make all the difference.

Fast Four: Brand Backlash, Bot Wars, & Heists in the Headlines Transcript

Anne Marie (00:02)

Welcome to Reputation Nation, the podcast that goes beyond the headlines to unpack corporate crises, legal battles, and the strategies that shape reputations. I’m Anne Marie Malecha the CEO of Dezenhall Resources and crisis management expert.

Stacy (00:16)

And I’m Stacy Bratcher, a lawyer who’s battled crises on the front page and in the courtroom. And sometimes those crises have led me into the foxhole with Anne Marie. Whether you’re in the C-suite, the legal department, or are just curious about controversy, we’ve got you covered. Let’s get started.

Anne Marie (00:36)

Welcome to Reputation Nation Fast Four, where Stacy and I will spend a few minutes on headlines that have caught our eye. In each Fast Four episode, we’ll dive into four timely stories where we’ll provide a quick summary of why it’s interesting to us in the Reputation Nation and leave you with an actionable insight or two. For Des Reads fans, this is the audio visual version of Des Reads, which was the brainchild of my colleague, Josh Culling, but with a slant on what’s making headlines in the legal crisis, regulatory, and reputation realm.

Stacy (01:04)

Recently, Cracker Barrel replaced its classic logo that featured a man in overalls with the barrel with a modern text only version to refresh its image to appeal to younger guests. The rebrand was meant to support a broader turnaround called the Transformation Plan that included remodels and a new marketing campaign. However, the change quickly triggered strong backlash on social media. And Anne Marie and I are going to talk about why that happened and what they could do about it now.

I’m fascinated with Cracker Barrel because this was part of a strategy that they had executed. You know, it launched last spring in May. It had results. I mean, until the actual brand, the new CEO raised their revenue every quarter, like four consecutive quarters with their transformation plan. And this new brand was just kind of like the icing on the cake.

Anne Marie (01:57)

I think it’s interesting just in and of itself that we’re talking about Cracker Barrel. It’s not one thing that I think in either of our daily lives we spend a lot of time thinking about, but I grew up in the Midwest and so did you. on every road trip, there’s how many Cracker Barrels along the highway and you think about it. And it’s interesting these sort of, I’m gonna call them.

mid-sized town chains have really come back into focus for ⁓ folks like Applebee’s, Chili’s, Cracker Barrel, Red Lobster. We’ve seen a lot of major changes. And I think part of that is like there’s this extreme desire and nostalgia from our generations of simpler times, which has made a huge opportunity both economically for the companies, but also for these communities because

Stacy (02:30)

retro.

Anne Marie (02:46)

they are in many cases the most restaurants that they have or the primary sort of gathering places. And I think that in and of itself is interesting. But the thing about any company that’s existing in a world that’s not necessarily on the coast or dealing with a Madison Avenue crowd, you can’t hire a big city design firm to do your rebrand and not think about your audience really clearly.

The company itself, I think, had thought about its audience really clearly. To your point about the transformation plan, that had been in the works for months. Great stock results, more folks coming in the door. People were happy with the product. And then they did this big launch with the new design and there was all this backlash.

Stacy (03:33)

Well, there’s so much that’s interesting to me about this Anne Marie and I really wanted to talk to you about it because I mean, first of all, while the brand, the logo is different and doesn’t have the barrel or the man on it, it’s not like it’s completely different. The colors are the same. The font is largely the same. I sort of, ⁓ you know, if I was a customer, I would sort of be like, this is all you came back with because it doesn’t seem all that different. And so

The backlash is really surprising and I’m wondering if there was something else going on in the ether that got this to have so much attention.

Anne Marie (04:11)

There definitely was and I’ll get to that in a second, but I agree the new logo was not a massive departure. In fact, I thought it was bolder, maybe a little bit more retro looking, which I think is what they were going for and holding on to the legacy of the brand and the company. But you know, what do I know when it comes to branding? That’s not my thing. What I think is super interesting here is what

the company might not have planned for and certainly didn’t expect in terms of the conversation and who was participating in the criticism conversation. So there was a lot of bot activity that was detected across social channels about the rebrand and the criticism specifically was stoked by inauthentic activity. In my work, that is something we see all the time now. It’s happening.

from motivated adversaries that were traditional motivated adversaries for companies all along. So if you’re publicly traded, it’s potentially a short seller. If you are in a highly regulated industry, it could be a NGO or a nonprofit that could fundraise off of whatever challenge you have. It could be a nation state actor, depending on what’s going on. I mean, my sense is that this is competitor driven or potentially someone in the market.

Stacy (05:25)

want to get some actionable insight here for, because I, again, sort of as somebody who is not in the marketing space, relaunching a brand, I’m sure there’s a whole workflow and campaign behind that, but it would never occur to me that managing inauthentic bot-driven content would be part of that. And so can you talk about what is that and why do people need to be aware of it?

Anne Marie (05:51)

Absolutely. This gets back to the conflict piece of crisis management. Whether you’re doing a marketing campaign or you’re dealing with a regulatory issue, if you have motivated adversaries, which every company in the world has, they look differently depending on who you are, what industry you’re in and what you’re doing. But every company has somebody that sees a vested interest in having that organization not do well or have to face problems. And in Cracker Barrel’s case, there’s a lot of potential options because they’re publicly traded.

They’ve got a decent amount of investor activity. They’ve got a decent amount of competitors and those competitors in some cases are PE backed. So there’s a lot of resources. I think of reticence to admit that this is what’s happening in the world, but it is because if you are driving people to a narrative that ultimately advances your position, whether good or bad, it has a benefit, both reputationally and often in

in a dollars and cents capacity. This is something that we’ve seen in our work for a long time. I think a lot of people think about it in the sense of the political sphere, but this is happening in ⁓ competitor on competitor or corporate violence, if you will. And we have seen this play out in major ways for companies where it’s completely tanked their stock. It has brought regulatory scrutiny to them. It’s gotten boycotts to happen or stop. It’s a nightmare.

And you have to think about it, which is why marketing.

and traditional communications doesn’t happen in a vacuum, why investor relations and financial related communications don’t happen in a vacuum, why lawsuits don’t happen in a vacuum. And if you don’t have in an organization somebody that’s sort of overseeing all of that and quarterbacking that from a holistic perspective, it’s a real detriment. And that’s why I think we’ve seen this chief corporate affairs officer become a person that really has a seat at the strategic table. And it’s a really important function because all of these things are intertwined. And more practically on the

side of things. Defending against this is something that we’ve had to find solutions to help our clients with. About two years ago, we started putting together the ability to track and then mitigate in real time this type of activity with a system we call Siren 360. And I’ll tell you, it’s almost a part of every campaign that we have for clients now and every sort of effort that we’re running, even if it’s not a traditional public affairs campaign because

If you don’t have to mitigate it, great, but you want to know what’s being said by who, how, and try and trace where it’s coming from because that information can be really important whether you’re just in the normal course of business or you are in a more crisis situation like a potential lawsuit. In the New York Times, there’s a story in just seven brazen minutes thieves grab priceless jewels from the Louvre.

If you aren’t aware of what happened in France, thieves disguised as construction workers executed a very swift, meticulously planned heist at the Louvre, stealing eight pieces of the French crown jewels worth roughly $102 million, all in broad daylight, and in just seven minutes while the museum was full.

Stacy (09:02)

I mean, it’s a movie. We just had Halloween and I was trick or treating and many of the adults were dressed up as jewel heists.

Anne Marie (09:09)

It’s a great costume. I love that people are latching onto the humor in this. It’s not funny that these crown jewels were stolen, but the Louvre is supposed to be one of the most secure museums in the world. They’ve got all sorts of treasured works. It does look like a fortress. hard to get into. And these guys used a ladder through a window.

Stacy (09:22)

It looks like a fortress.

Yeah, it’s wild. Well, ⁓ the BBC just published a story that, there was an audit that occurred before the heist and found that the Louvre prioritized artisan or staging of the art over security. And, I haven’t seen that report yet. I’m going to look it up, but to me, that is a

really big red flag if you commission an audit or review of your security, your organization, and then you don’t do anything with it. That’s a big problem.

Anne Marie (10:02)

two things that play there for me. Operations have to drive optics, whatever that looks like and whatever business you’re in. And two, it’s a really good reason to have those reports done through counsel so that they are privileged and can’t be released without your say so and willingness to do so. Bad move on the board for not recognizing that maybe we needed to move a little bit faster and upgrading our security measures. I do think the follow on I’ve seen

I mean, certainly there’s been satirical memes all over the internet, but the ladder company that had the brand of the ladder that these guys use got in on the joke and talked about that they’re, you know, they make the right tools for the job.

Stacy (10:42)

I

love it. mean, way to take a crisis and make it into an opportunity.

Anne Marie (10:46)

You and I have talked many times, Stacy, about whether things happen organically or they’re publicity stunts or there’s this Machiavellian master plan. And something that’s been interesting about the Louvre heist is there’s a movie coming out called Now You See Me. I think it’s the third iteration of it. And the internet is abuzz about whether or not this was a publicity stunt as part of the movie’s rollout. Curious what you think.

Stacy (11:13)

Well, I think we would both, if we were advising the Louvre, would advise against using a jewelry heist to promote the museum. think that that is, while interesting and, you know, very entertaining, I don’t think that it supports the brand of the Louvre. I certainly, if I was advising them as their general counsel or chief risk officer, would not want to at all indicate that there were any security breaches at

the museum. I do think this is just coincidence and I’m sure the internet and the bots that we talked about earlier are probably generating the controversy and conspiracy.

Anne Marie (11:51)

I

think you’re probably right. Also, if I’m the movie, I don’t know that I have that kind of budget to deal with police response and all the things that had to happen in order for this to go off without a hitch. And to keep a secret like that is…

I think next to impossible. An NBC affiliate in Austin, Texas has a story called Top Twitch Streamers File Defamation Lawsuit Against Fellow Streamers. A top Twitch streamer filed a federal defamation suit against three gaming companies and two fellow.

Twitch streamers, if you are unfamiliar with Twitch like I was when I read this article. It’s an online live streaming platform where users can watch and broadcast video game content, music, other creative streams in real time. Neither Stacy or I are gamers, but this is super interesting to me because the social channel itself is not one I’m familiar with, but has a ton of

users. think there’s like 240 million active users globally. That’s a huge audience. And also federal defamation law. I think this is going to potentially test the boundaries of what a public figure is considered to be. These folks put themselves out on the internet. Does that mean they are public figures?

Stacy (13:09)

Yeah, that’s one definitely one to watch something that appears to be kind of a niche area, but a ruling would certainly have broader implications. There’s so many social media influencers on platforms we’re more familiar with. don’t typically the law lags technology, so it will be very interesting to see if this defamation is expanded to folks who have a presence on a video game streaming system.

Anne Marie (13:34)

The last few Defamation Matters that I’ve been involved with have centered on YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and I think that that’s the new frontier for most things because while mainstream media certainly is important still, people are getting their news from these alternative platforms. I’m also super curious how that ends up translating with these newer media channels with sub stacks, podcasts, etc.

Stacy (13:57)

Yeah, definitely one to watch. And I think like some of the other topics we’ve talked about, like with the OpenAI and New York Times, the tech is helping the law evolve and then that informs our corporate strategy and how we move forward with our business. So very interesting. I can’t wait to learn more about that. We’re going to talk about a headline in CNN, although this story has been all over.

many, many different channels. Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau are officially dating. Everyone has decided as recently as last week. ⁓ she was, this is a local story. That’s, that’s interesting to me because Katy Perry does live in Santa Barbara. she was spotted with Justin Trudeau on her boat in our Santa Barbara Harbor. ⁓ and they are, they are Instagram official, I believe. So Katie’s making headlines for her relationship with the former prime minister.

And he is certainly getting a brand refresh after his, you know, less than graceful ouster from the official position. So I’m curious about this Anne Marie, because it, I actually think more about, about it from the Justin Trudeau side of things, because he had a, political appointment. He, you know, was sort of, and you think of those folks as being more buttoned up and Katie is a pop star and a little bit, ⁓ audacious. She’s very out there.

And so it’s, you know, as I said, kind of an opportunity for him to have a rebrand. But I wonder what you think about that more globally, where you have these sort of two different worlds, people from different worlds getting together.

Anne Marie (15:29)

I think it’s interesting that there’s been a lot of chatter questioning whether this new alliance offers reputational upside or only brings more scrutiny or speculation. I think it depends on whether you’re sitting in Katy Perry’s seat and her team seat and Justin Trudeau’s seat. Cause I do think it’s a little different. Katy Perry is a musician. She’s been out in the public eye in

multiple ways. She just recently did this Blue Origin space travel. I think she likes kind of being a shock jock, if you will. She likes to push the boundaries and Justin Trudeau I think was seen as being really buttoned up and maybe he wants to be a little bit less so. Maybe he wants to break into more of a Hollywood crowd in his next iteration.

I don’t think this is a publicity stunt. think this is maybe more of a situation of opposites attract and good for them. But I do think they’re gonna have to be really mindful of where paparazzi are hanging out in the bushes and who’s interested in pushing a narrative that this is something different than it is. But I think Katie’s gonna have to maybe school him a little bit in the ways of the media in her world versus the political media.

Stacy (16:39)

Very different. you know, this is something I think a lot about with this particular pairing. And it’s a question that comes up all the time. And I always ask you about that. Is there any such thing as bad press? Because, you know, again, Justin sort of lost his job very publicly. And now with this relationship, it’s a complete refresh. Like, like no one cares about whether he’s the prime minister anymore or not. They’re interested now.

that he has a relationship with a fun, you know, engaging pop star.

Anne Marie (17:10)

I think in his case there this isn’t bad press at all. It’s always situational but

He’s got to figure out what his next act is and whether that’s writing a book or doing a documentary or philanthropy or investing. All of that will probably have some public lens on it. He is a public figure. There is a long history of politicians turning to other endeavors. The Obamas have a media company. The Clintons started the Clinton Global Initiative, which then turned into all these events and other things. think Trudeau has

mass appeal. He’s also pretty young, so there’s a lot he can do for a long time. And I think having somebody that has that experience is probably relatable both in their personal relationship and whatever business endeavors come next. I think there’s a net win for him. Now, if there’s a massive breakup or some scandal around how it ends, I might change my mind.

Stacy (18:02)

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. And I think to the extent there’s any, you know, intention behind them getting together, it certainly brings him to a younger audience. You know, I can’t don’t know how many, you know, 13 year olds were thinking about the Prime Minister of Canada.

Anne Marie (18:18)

We also don’t have Americans that really are paying that much attention to the elections and what happened in Canada. So I think if you’re going to reposition yourself in the world doing that in the States, particularly in California with the Hollywood crowd is fine. I mean, we, kind of like people that can reinvent themselves. That’s a big story in the Hollywood arc.

Stacy (18:40)

Okay, so at least no bad press about this issue.

Anne Marie (18:42)

Weeks

fast-forward doesn’t have a great through line amongst these cases, but there is something that is always a good reminder. Expect the unexpected. Cracker Barrel could have expected the unexpected.

Stacy (18:53)

The Louvre, think they could have looked at that audit report and taken action. When the unexpected happens, I think that you need to go to your crisis management expert, Anne Marie. So that’s why you’re always my Batphone call.

Anne Marie (19:04)

Have people in place. That actually I think is a useful tip for anybody in any role. Have folks in place that can be your advisors when things are challenging and have them in place when you’re in times of peace, whether that’s legal counsel, accountants, crisis managers, you name it, depending on the industry you’re in, it’s gonna look different.

You want folks to know who you are, how you operate, what your reputation baseline is, your bias for action, inaction, etc. So that you can have the best shot of getting through whatever issue you’re facing as quickly and as unscathed as possible.

Stacy (19:37)

Yeah, that’s one of my favorite maxims, which is build a relationship before you need it. That’s it for this episode of Reputation Nation. Thanks for joining us. We hope you found this episode useful. Have a crisis you want to dissect on a future episode? Connect with us on LinkedIn or email us at repnat at dezenhall.com.

Anne Marie (19:58)

to more about navigating a corporate crisis or high stakes lawfare situation, or want more hot takes from us, subscribe to Dez Reads and our take at Dezenhall.com. And be sure to check out Stacy’s The Legal Department podcast for more legal insights at LegalDepartmentPod.com. Thanks for listening. See you next time in The Reputation Nation.

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