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Let’s be honest, the announced logo and overall brand reimagining for Cracker Barrel restaurants announced recently could NOT have gone much worse.

This kerfuffle takes the logo debacle that the Gap Stores instigated when they TRIED to introduce a completely new logo in 2010 (which was an IMMEDIATE disaster) and raises it beyond retail and into the muck and mire of the political world. Whoa…that’s bad.

The new restaurant logo (when compared to one another – old v. new) makes it seem like the logo designer never stepped into a Cracker Barrel. It does not fit with the store image (personality) that most consumers have or seem to want for Cracker Barrel.

But the logo is just one part of a reported $700 million rebrand…and it sounds very much like the Cracker Barrels of tomorrow will not resemble much of what customers see today.

At present, it has been said that Cracker Barrel is executing “pilot remodel tests” in about 25-30 stores as a part of a multi-year strategic transformation plan (see $700 million). The changes planned for the Cracker Barrel chain include lighter paint options, new fixtures and lighting, and repositioning décor – all changes designed to enhance the guest experience by providing an environment that feels lighter, brighter, fresher, and cleaner.

Well, that WAS the plan.

Customers are upset, the general public is upset (even people who don’t regularly go to Cracker Barrel, it seems) and for reasons still unclear to me, some politicians have decided to be upset about this logo change – where do THEY find the time??

If you think about it, a chain only makes plans to fix all this stuff ($700 million worth of stuff) if either sales are down, research says customers specifically want change or some combination therein.

But the completely negative reaction to the Cracker Barrel logo change (and maybe also the interior changes, although that feedback is spotty this far) seems to effectively shoot in the foot whatever drastic (or even less drastic) plans the restaurant had for the interior.

What can Cracker Barrel do? Stop. Drop. And roll.

Reconvene the designers for both logo and interior and say, we may need to make these changes but we are going to have to redefine the timeline and degree to which we implement these changes. Then implement a plan to calm consumers.

Regarding the logo…I’d implement some version of the ”just kidding” plan to the public, squash talk of that new logo immediately and then test a middle ground logo between the original and the new. It would then be presented in a much softer roll out.

They could have done this initially, btw. How about we just change the font style to the new look and keep the icon. Then in phase two, revise the sign/logo to just the word mark and no icon? Too expensive you say? Cracker Barrel’s plan A for logo roll out cost the company $94 million in market value in 1 day (worst ever for the company). Makes the tiered sign change costs seem like a bargain in comparison, doesn’t it?

Next, time for some spin.

Turn the logo negative into a positive…”clearly the public has spoken and shared how much the Cracker Barrel brand and logo mean to them. We love it just as much and are only working to enhance the experience of our valued customers based on their feedback.”

In essence, we hear you and we are responding to what you want, even (Cracker Barrel might say under their breath) if you all said something very different in our consumer research).

“We love all the at home designers adding their spin to our design process online and see it a nice compliment.”

“We’re not perfect but Cracker Barrel means as much to us as it does to you. As we evolve to meet the needs and tastes of our deeply respected customers, know that we will never forget that it IS the customer that comes first at Cracker Barrel.”

No doubt someone on their marketing team can make those words sing much prettier than I have done here but presenting that kind of message to the direct and indirect Cracker Barrel consumers should help calm the storm.

I have other ideas but no one is paying me so they’ll have to figure the rest out on their own.

Tags: advertising, logo design, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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One of the nice things about my voiceover and audio production business is that, because it is a web-based business, I can work nationally and internationally.

I am very fortunate that media production companies from all parts of the English-speaking world come to audioconnell.com.

But as I have pointed out before, I often and gladly work with local and regional businesses as clients too.

There are many different ways to gain the attention of these regional prospects.

Lately on Facebook, I have been enjoying promoting on some of the town and city groups in North Carolina that I joined during their specific small business day.

Some Facebook groups dedicate specific days of the week to promoting local businesses. This allows businesses to advertise their services or products on a dedicated day without overwhelming the group with promotional content every day. This approach helps maintain the overall quality and purpose of the group while still providing a valuable platform for local businesses to reach their target audience.

Some groups implement a “Small Business Wednesday” where local businesses can promote their services or products.
Others have a “Saturday Business Spotlight” post, where businesses are encouraged to comment with their promotions, rather than creating separate posts.

As you would expect, I only promote on the authorized days – not only because I would risk getting tossed out of the group for violating their terms of service but also because I don’t want to come across as obnoxious.

The graphic featured on this post is a new version of something I have used in the past…no doubt I will tweak the creative going forward so as not to be boring but also….fun!

Let me know if you have had any success getting new business in these groups.

Tags: advertising, facebook, marketing, social media, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I’m not much of a cable news watcher but I loves me some new logos.

So Comcast is selling off MSNBC (which was a cable news venture NBC News kicked off decades ago with Microsoft – hence the MS) that has always pretty much been an also ran news network to CNN and certainly Fox News — which has been / is a ratings juggernaut in that particular space.

With the new owners must come a new name because the cable news network does not get to keep the Peacock after the sale.

So let’s see what they’ve done.

From a name perspective, they are changing it to MS NOW (with a space, as opposed to MSNBC, no space).

The MS is now supposed to stand for “My Source”. The NOW is supposed to stand for “News, Opinion, World”.

In other words “My Source (for) News, Opinion (and the) World”. Um…ok.

They can try as hard as they want to promote the brand meaning with all those words – I don’t think it will go especially well, no one will care.

But overall, the NAME change from MSNBC to MS NOW I think is pretty good. The new name plays well off the old, established name…news consumers and I think a good chunk of the American public have some understanding of what MSNBC is…so calling the new channel MS NOW could actually transition well.

I grade A- on the name change (regardless of the supposed meaning), with a lesser grade due to the loss of the iconic peacock.

On to the MS NOW icon. What the hell is it?

A flag? A quasi-American flag? Did somebody in the graphics department start playing with the shape tool in PowerPoint??

You had all this time and THIS was your best effort?

It’s bad. It lacks creativity. It lacks…everything.

I grade it an F as in what the F.

As I recall, the MSNBC people used to change their logo once every other year or so. I’m guessing in another 12 months, someone will get around to hiring a professional designer to give that logo some polish…or actually, to give that network an actual darn logo.

Tags: commentary, logo design, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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There are many great things about WoVOCon The Voiceover Unconference coming up October 17-19, 2025 in New Orleans.

The energy, the education, the networking and the friendship are the first great things that come to mind. Plus I am very honored to be asked back to serve as Emcee in New Orleans.

Unfortunately, this job also means I have to do some promotional work — which I don’t mind at all, except they ask me sometimes to do videos.

As you well know, I have a face for radio.

But they asked…and I am a loyal volunteer glad to help as the leadership sees fit. Plus the video is less than a minute long. Feel free to close your eyes and just listen.

Most importantly, I hope you join us!!

 
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION

Peter K. O’Connell speaking:
Hey, how are you? I may be a little early on this out of studio message, but I wanted to let you know October 17th through the 19th, I will be out of Raleigh, North Carolina, and in New Orleans, Louisiana enjoying WoVOCon The Voiceover Unconference, October 17th through the 19th. I hope you’ll join us. WoVOCon is unlike any other kind of voiceover conference you’ll ever attend. That’s why they call it an unconference. a unique format, a great group of people, and very, very impactful for your voiceover business. Performance, marketing, technology, we cover it all, and we cover it with experts. Nobody’s selling anything. They’re just there to help your business. WoVOCon The Voiceover Unconference in New Orleans, October 17th through the 19th. I hope you join us.

Tags: emcee, live announcing, WOVOCON by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Like all of us in our everyday lives, people new to voiceover are in an all-fired hurry to get behind the mic and start recording.

The advice these rush-rush-rush folks get from voiceover pros never sits well with them:

• Take group voiceover lessons
• Take individual voiceover lessons
• It can easily take at least six months before you’re ready to perform

Like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, they want a voiceover career to start NOW!

From a technology standpoint, they can start now…buy a cheap mic, plug it in to a computer (or worse yet just use your phone), sign up at a crappy pay-to-play voiceover site and start auditioning.

Enjoy the crickets of those new jobs more than likely NOT coming in.

So if these new voice acting folks do take the more prudent, thoughtful approach to their new career, if they do take the advice, how will they know when they are ready for their voiceover debut?

The answer varies with every person.

But I was reminded of a good milestone to know when you’re on the right path to a voiceover career the other night when I was teaching a group voiceover lesson.

Simply put,

that milestone is an actor’s ability to “take and execute successfully voiceover direction on the fly”.

What that phrase means is a bit more involved but it’s something every professional voice talent does every day in their job.

What? Lemme ‘splain…

Most scripts come with some written direction on how a producer or client wants a voiceover read to sound. The direction can be as simple as a word or a sentence OR it can be as detailed as a full on creative brief that goes on for a page and sometimes has audio and video examples with it.

But what I refer to as “on the fly direction” is usually direction you get during a voiceover session (or in a voiceover class), usually in-person or in a connected session (like Source-Connect), where you start getting direction outside of the direction listed on the script.

Why would you be getting additional direction? Many reasons but a few might be:

• The director got the takes (sound) they wanted based on the script specs at the start of the recording session but now wants to be creative and have other options to share with the client or hold in reserve in case the client doesn’t like the sound of what they originally agreed to (which happens more than you think)

• The director doesn’t like the read given…it’s not the sound he/she was hearing in his/her head (it has happened to everyone at least once in their career)

• The client doesn’t like the way the audio is turning out even though you did exactly what they asked

The reason for the change in direction doesn’t matter — but what DOES matter is the voice talent’s ability to deliver on the new, unplanned direction.

A trained voice talent, one who has studied voice acting, is not really thrown by such a request but is prepared for it (or at the very least can adapt to it), doesn’t take the changes personally, listens closely to the direction (asking questions for clarification), jumps on the creative band wagon and can usually execute the changes to the producer’s satisfaction.

Attitude for the voice talent in such a situation is almost as important as their line delivery – as that attitude (and their adaptability) can be the difference in ever being hired again by the studio or client.

A pro talent is open to change, accepts tweaks, critiques and even criticism for what it is…part of the journey to satisfy the client and get the job done. Some one who does NOT react or respond well to such changes (most because they weren’t trained in how to deal with it) is going to have immediate and long term reputation problems (cause producers and engineers talk).

Some new voice talents need practice at on the fly direction and some students – like the one I had last week – took the direction and really upped their read. There were still some rough spots but the improvement was amazing. There is a bright VO future there.

So please do the training, get prepared.

In conjunction with the above advice, please consider the pitfalls of voiceover demo mills.

Wait, you may be saying to yourself, what does one have to do with the other. Lemme ‘splain some more.

These demo mills are companies many voiceover newbies find (among other spots) via “free” voiceover classes at places like Community Colleges. You attend the  free class, you’re told you have ‘a bright future in voiceover’, you are offered a program (that you ultimately pay plenty for) where you take a few classes and they make you a commercial voiceover demo in a pretty short amount of time.

So exciting, right? No.

Most of the time, the untrained student gets a demo and not much else to show for it. Rarely any real training.

What I think these demo mills do, besides give somebody rushed lessons, fake praise, false hope and a “demo”, is take a person’s money and leave them with barely passable VO demo.

In some cases, some of the untrained students that fall for these demo mills don’t have the basic talent to be a voice actor (they as performers are just not good) — even if they studied with James Earl Jones every day for 10 years. Other folks in these classes could be but still get no viable training.

In either of the above cases, the demo mills cash in on someone’s dreams, do not help the individual and that’s crappy.

Here’s the nasty secret to demo mills and how I think they REALLY hurt a potential talent – they direct an untrained student “talent” on a few lines of script among seven or eight scripts that gives the producer just enough content to produce the demo.

In the demo production, demo mill producers just focus on getting a mostly untrained student to deliver a close to average or acceptable read on a line or two of copy. They will then edit a bunch of those not great reads into a demo.

But even if the student gives on OK read on those lines (likely after MANY attempts in the demo studio) the untrained student is very unlikely to be able to deliver a FULL PERFORMANCE of that read in a FULL SCRIPT in a studio with a professional producer if the untrained student talent gets hired off the demo mill produced voiceover demo.

The demo mills aren’t teaching script interpretation (which is not at all the same as reading comprehension), they aren’t teaching acting techniques, or anything about breathe control, or versions or you….I could go on and on.

In reality, a producer at a voiceover demo mill (and sometimes the “mill” is just a company of 1) is not teaching an untrained student talent anything except how to voice 1-2 lines of copy well enough to create a read that “sounds” professional…and then collect the demo money.

But…and this is a painful but…should the voice talent get hired off the demo, they are completely ill-trained, ill-equipped to reproduce the demo sound or heaven forbid tweak that sound in an actual recording session. The talent doesn’t know how to really do it because they do not have the training.

Whether the producer fires the talent on the spot or muddles through the session…the talent has made a first impression that is likely unrecoverable.

If you’re looking to get into voiceover, reading this and thinking “I would never make that mistake,” please know that’s what all the people who have worked with demo mills in the past thought too.

Now go back up at read my original advice:
• Take group voiceover lessons
• Take individual voiceover lessons
• It can easily take at least six months before you’re ready to perform

Working quickly can often result in sloppy (read: unprofessional) work.

Nobody’s perfect but be smart and do not start off on the wrong foot.

Please be careful and good luck.

 

Tags: voice over workshop by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Most of the time when I teach a voiceover class through my Voiceover Workshop, it’s a private lesson either in my Raleigh, NC voiceover studio or on a Zoom call somewhere around the world.

But every now and again, I get pulled out of the studio to teach in the voiceover wilderness of eastern and central North Carolina.

Tonight my friend, Wendy Zier, who teaches over at the Theatre Raleigh ACT studios in Raleigh, needed the night off so she called me in as her voiceover teaching understudy.

Great class of students there who really did some great work on the commercial and narration scripts I brought along.

Wonderful time had by all. Thanks!

 

 

 

Tags: voice over workshop by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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