What happens when a restaurant chain tries a bold experiment that tests human nature? If you ask customers to pay what they want for a sandwich, will they help others in need? PLUS: Customer Service tackles "genericide." It happened to the Elevator.
Reported by Dan Bobkoff and Sara Gonzalez at Planet Money. Produced by Anna Mazarakis, Amy Pedulla, and Sarah Wyman, and by Darian Woods and Sally Helm at Planet Money.
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Transcript
Note: This transcript may contain errors.
DAN BOBKOFF: Hey, Dan here. We have something a little different this week. We've teamed up with NPR's Planet Money podcast to bring you the story of a very unusual kind of Panera cafe and how things didn't quite turn out as planned. If you found us from Planet Money, welcome. Check out our past episodes and subscribe and rate us on your favorite podcast app. Also, we have a Facebook group! Search for Household Name podcast on Facebook and join the conversation there. Stick around till the end of the show, we have a fun story about what happens when a company loses control of its own brand name, and since this is the start of Season 2, we'll have a preview of some of the stories we're working on the next few weeks. And now, here's the show! And my partner for the episode, NPR's Sara Gonzalez.
SARAH GONZALEZ: He's a big deal now — the founder of Panera Bread — but back in college, he was just Ron Shake, a teen getting kicked out of stores.
RON SHAKE: I was tossed out of a local convenience store.
SG: Wait, you got kicked out of a convenience store in college?
RS: Yes.
SG: What did you do?
RS: They accused us the shoplifting. I did nothing.
SG: Are you sure?
RS: I am positive.
SG: Okay. (laughs)
SG: Ron Shake vowed to never go back to that store.
RS: And I said why don't we open our own non-profit convenience store? If they don't appreciate our business, let's do our own!
DB: Ron was 19 years old when he opened this store. On his college campus.
SG: What did you sell?
RS: We sold everything you might want on a college campus, you know, crackers and snacks, the beverages, cleaning supplies.
SG: Ron was good at opening stores. He went on to build a little cafe called Au Bon Pain into a big chain, and out of that came another big chain, called Panera Bread.
DB: There are more than 2,000 Paneras now. And you know, Ron is a good guy. He's the kind of guy who takes his kids to volunteer at food banks on the weekend.
SG: And while they're all volunteering, he starts thinking, like, wow, food pantries are really inefficient. He might as well write a check, he thought.
DB: And then one night he's watching the news. It was actually a rerun of the NBC Nightly News he said. They had a story about this cafe in Denver called SAME. Short for So All May Eat. That allows customers to pay what they want.
NBC: There's the menu with no prices and the customers: Those with and those without...
SG: At SAME cafe … it didn't matter if you had money to pay for your meal.
DB: And Ron's thinking, 'this sounds great! I can do something like this!'
RS: I said 'we open a cafe every two days. We have more equipment, more resources, more capabilities, this is something we can do.'
SG: He thinks Panera can do this faster, bigger, and better. Private sector efficiency!
DB: And this is the moment he decides he'll open nonprofit versions of Paneras — they'd look and taste like any other, but customers can decide what they want to pay.
RS: I fundamentally believed that there were enough good people in the world that they would do the right thing. But I particularly loved torturing the cynics who were arguing 'no way this would work.' Everybody thought it would be lunch on Uncle Ron.
SG: Ron was making a big bet. Not just on the business, but on human nature. That wealthy people and poor people would want to sit side by side for lunch. And that people would be so generous … that these restaurants would break even.
DB: And a professor who really knows consumers was watching, with a lot of interest.
DB: And what was your first impression of the idea?
GIANA ECKHARDT: My first impression of the idea was this will never work.
DB: From Business Insider and Stitcher, this is Household Name. Brands you know, stories you don't. I'm Dan Bobkoff.
Today: does Panera care? What happens when a corporation tries a major experiment in charity that goes right to the heart of human nature? What do shoppers and eaters believe in? And then, what will they actually spend money on?
This is a story about homelessness. Broccoli cheddar soup. And the war between good and evil that rages within every consumer. Sara Gonzalez from Planet Money is with us for all of that.
Plus, did you know that escalator used to be a brand name? It was until the company messed up. That's later. Stay with us.
ACT I
DB: Paneras are kinda like fancier fast food. They're a little healthier and a little pricier.
SG: When Ron said he was going to let customers pay whatever they wanted for Panera food … he decided these cafes needed to be in areas where there were enough poorer people who could benefit from the generosity of enough wealthier people.
RS: Our whole idea here was not simply to create another homeless shelter or another soup kitchen. It was actually to have a real meal and a real meal with dignity.
DB: So he creates a non profit arm called Panera Cares. Instead of cash registers, the Cares cafes have donation bins. All the prices on the menu are just suggested prices.
SG: You know, to give customers some idea of how much food actually costs… And the whole idea and hope is that enough wealthier customers will pay more than the suggested prices so the needy can eat for less.
DB: The first location opened in Clayton, Missouri, near St. Louis, in 2010. Ron actually stepped down as CEO to get it off the ground.
RS: I can remember that first day we opened a cafe. I waited on customers. I waited behind the counter. I worked 100 hours that next week in the cafe.
DB: Ron then opens more nonprofit Paneras in Chicago, Boston. Portland, Oregon and Dearborn, Michigan right outside of Detroit. I was a reporter in the area and I remember thinking 'hunger is such a problem, maybe this could this actually help?'
SG: No big restaurant corporation had ever tried this. And there was one professor who studies consumer behavior and consumer ethics … who is thinking … 'what Ron is proposing goes against everything I know about how consumers behave!'
SG: What is the most depressing thing you've learned studying consumer ethics?
GE: Oh my gosh that's wow. There's a deep well to to to pull from.
SG: Oh no.
DB: Giana Eckhardt is a professor of Marketing at Royal Holloway University of London.
GE: Well I'll answer that by telling you that the title of my most recent book on this topic which is called The Myth of the Ethical Consumer. (laughs)
SG: Yup. There are no ethical consumers. Giana says how people feel about a social issue … like hunger ... and how they behave in the marketplace are two totally different things.
SG: Meaning like I can hate sweatshops but I might still buy a pair of tennis shoes from a brand that uses sweatshop labor?
GE: Exactly.
DB: So she's like I have to follow Ron's experiment. She actually observes these cafes for years. Ron invited her to the opening of the Boston cafe because she wasn't a believer.
SG: He invited a bunch of people. And Giana was sitting next to a priest who ran a local food bank out of his church. So they're sitting there, listening to Ron...
GE: One of the things Ron talks about is that the people who come there can dine with dignity. This is his term. You don't have to go to a place like a food hall in a church where he described the food as being cafeteria food that tastes like you know, what you would eat when you were in third grade in school and you're surrounded by people who are down on their luck so it's a depressing experience. So as he was saying this, I could see the priest I was sitting next to getting more and more uncomfortable.
SG: These Panera Cares cafes got going quick. Soon they were serving 4,000 people a week.
DB: And, of course, there were a few early problems. Like, Ron had designed these big signs that explained the model, the menu, the mission:
RS: We put so much energy into building these signs to tell people to do the right thing pay what you want, pay what you can, pay it forward!
SG: But apparently people don't read signs. Everyone was confused. Like what do you mean suggested prices? So now they had to spend money to hire someone someone to stand at the door and explain how this whole thing works. But whatever. They were serving the needy! This is what Ron wanted.
DB: And you know, there's a certain kind of person, like those kids who take the whole bowl of Halloween candy… yeah, they showed up.
RS: I can literally remember a couple of kids local local kids walked into our store in Clayton, Missouri and they walked up to the counter kind of laughing and they said I'll have three smoothies and two roast beef sandwiches and here's my dad's credit card. Put three bucks on it. I just wanted to jump over that counter and I wanted to grab the kid around the neck and whack them. And I just wanted to say 'don't you get it? Right. Somebody else has got to pay.'
SG: Ron had to keep battling people's bad impulses. Even his own staff… they started judging people. Profiling them.
RS: People would walk in and we would assume we knew either based on how they looked, based on how they were dressed, you know potentially based on the color of their skin — what they were going to do.
DB: Staff would be like, 'wait how much did you put in the bin? You look like you could give more.' He ended up putting the staff through sensitivity training. But he's really happy with the experiment at this point.
SG: About 6 months in -- Ron says more than half of the customers were paying the suggested price. No more. No less. About 20% paid extra. And the other 20% paid less. Sometimes they paid nothing at all.
DB: Hey, free soup!
SG: Which overall sounds great. But what Giana's seeing, sitting there on all her visits, looks a little different.
GE: At the beginning people who were homeless were bringing in every possession that they owned into the Panera which was typically in like a shopping cart. That's how they would keep their possessions and so you would see all of these shopping carts around which also smelled. In addition to the people themselves. So the managers had to come up with rules about the size of bags that you could bring in and things like that to, to manage that situation.
DB: It fell on employees at these cafes to deal with issues that they weren't really qualified for, like manage mental health and drug issues. Sharon Davis worked at the Portland store.
SHARON DAVIS: I was probably one of the oldest people there, so it was kind of like Grandma Sharon type of thing.
SG: Grandma Sharon says she saw the best and worst of people.
SD: There was a customer sitting there and she comes up and she goes. 'Oh my God, these people are stink. I can't stand eating like this,' and I said, 'Well, I'm really sorry, but they are entitled to a meal.' You try to be very dignified, graceful about it.
SG: And the bathrooms in particular were a big draw. Customers were doing things in there that Grandma Sharon should not have seen.
SD: Took a bath, just basically sink shower. And there'd be a whole mess in there. There'd be quite a few of them that were shooting up in there. When they'd come out the door they were loaded and we'd open the door and look and there'd be blood everywhere. So then we'd have to close that bathroom.
DB: Sharon says they were trying to do their best. They would refer customers to rehab, shelters, jobs, things like that.
SG: The cafe in Denver, the one that inspired Ron, that's what they do. No prices. But this experiment was really about food. And employees like Sharon told us the real problem was that the cafes weren't attracting enough generous people who wanted to pay more. So pretty early on Panera's cafes started telling customers that if they didn't have money to pay … they could volunteer for an hour in exchange for a meal. You know, like clean under the counters. The first store was in business for 8 years. But then it closed.
DB: So did the ones in Dearborn, Chicago and Portland.
SG: Panera says it did not make financial sense to continue to operate Panera Cares. They're no longer trying to beat food banks at their own game. Panera is back to donating to them. Writing checks.
DB: Sharon says she had a month's notice that her store would close.
SD: We poured our last coffees together out of the coffee machine. And then we closed the door and we all just stood there and looked and then we all gave each other hugs and said we'll be in touch. And we left the parking lot for the last time.
SG: And Giana, our consumer expert, says Ron was naive about the whole thing. He didn't understand how those with and those without would behave next to each other.
GE: What ended up happening is the people who were not food insecure did not want to eat lunch with people who were food insecure.
SG: No one wanted to sitt next to homeless people. And Giana says the food insecure didn't necessarily feel comfortable around those with more means either.
DB: But Ron is a believer, even today, he says the cafes closed because their leases were up and the rent was skyrocketing. Not because his idea didn't work.
SG: What do you say to people who say that maybe you didn't understand like human nature when you started this?
RS: Excuse me. This thing worked! You've served millions of people over many many years. And so the fact that at the end of five years or seven or eight we closed the store by no means means that this wasn't a success.
DB: Giana says there are other models that could work better.
SG: Like, Panera could make people feel like they're getting a gift. Gifts make us feel guilty. They make us feel like we have to give back. There are pizza shops and coffee shops in the US that do this already.
GE: A lot of the ones that have been more successful than Panera Cares tend to be pay it forward model rather than a pay what you can model so say it's like a coffee shop for example, you're told, 'someone who came here before you has paid for your coffee,' and you're handed a free coffee.
SG: Oooh that's a good one.
GE: Yeah. And then you're asked, 'Would you like to pay for someone else's coffee?'
SG: Of course.
GE: Yeah. And because this is framed as a gift it tends to be quite powerful. So you think 'oh I've received a gift from someone that I don't even know.' And this, 'I should repay that gift,' is a very uh yeah a very strong instinct inside people.
DB: Another thing that would work better: Take those suggested prices off the menu. If you see a price, Giana says you think that's the amount you should pay. With no price, people actually give more.
SG: The cafe in Denver -- the one that inspired Ron --- that's what they do. No prices.
BRAD RUBINDELL: Yeah, soup salad and pizza. That's what we serve every day.
SG: Brad Rubindell runs SAME Cafe. And it turns out they're pretty different from Panera Cares. They never wanted to completely rely on the generosity of people. They don't want to ever be self sustaining. They fundraise. They have a big gala every year. Brad says that if more than half its its customers are paying, they're doing something wrong.
BR: It becomes a place where wealthy white people feel good about eating but it doesn't actually serve the mission.
DB: Brad says it's actually a terrible business model if you're trying to break even. This was designed to be a charity. It runs like a non-profit. And it was designed for the people it serves.
SG: Like there are cubbies so the homeless have a place to leave their stuff. There are what they call "introvert tables" so people can sit there in peace for hours.
BR: You know I'm a middle class white guy. And so if I ever want to be left alone I go pay five dollars for an overpriced coffee and no one's gonna bother me. But many of our guests that are carrying all of their belongings that they own are made to feel uncomfortable in those places even if they pay for a coffee.
SG: I hadn't even. I hadn't thought about it like that but white men do love sitting by themselves at coffee shops.
BR: And we're good at it!
DB: But there's one Panera Cares left. After the break, we go and we pay what we want.
ACT II
SG: Dan and I are in the one remaining pay what you want Panera Cares. It's in Boston.
DB: And they take their bathroom security very seriously here. Change their bathroom codes multiple times a day.
SG: What's the code right now?
BARRY COMBS: The codes 8 0 5 3 2 9 9 2 1 7 for ladies room.
SG: How do you remember that?
BC: (laughs) I make them! Plus I'm kind of a numbers guy.
DB: This is Barry Combs. The manager of Panera Cares.
SG: It looks pretty much like any Panera — with a few little differences. Like there this wall of day-old bread when you walk in.
BC: This bread wall is for anybody else that's in need. You can come in. We have a bin here. You can add what you can, grab a loaf of bread, bring it to the cashiers and we'd slice it for you. You'd add your donation right into the bin here.
DB: There's not a lot in here right now what is it 4 bucks?
BC: It's not for a profit. Everything is suggested amounts.
SG: You know I've never been to a Panera...so what should I order?
BC: Broccoli cheddar soup.
DB: That sounds like the gateway drug to Panera.
SG: (laughs) Ok let's go order something.
DB: We see the clear donation bins.
SG: Plexiglass? Plastic?
DB: But you have to look really closely to see the tiny type at the top of the menu that says the prices are just suggested donations.
SG: Ok I'm gonna do the broccoli cheddar soup.
CASHIER: And your total comes out to $9.28. Would you like to make a donation today?
SG: Meaning I can donate $9.28 or not donate $9.28?
CASHIER: It's up to you to just place your value in the bin. However much you wish to donate.
SG: I got a $20, so I'll do that. What's your name?
CASHIER: Kim.
SG: Thanks, Kim.
CASHIER: Thanks so much we really appreciate it.
SG: Alright so how much did you pay?
DB: Alright so I paid $10. She told me that I donated $0.32 to the next person. Then I felt like a cheapskate, like I should have put more in there.
SG: Yeah that is a little cheap of you Dan, come on.
DB: But I saw you like hold a wad of bills into the bin and just hold it there for like a minute. It was like...
SG: No I wasn't conflicted about it. I was just trying to fit it in the little slot.
DB: Right because there were so many bills because you're so generous. [laughter]
SG: Right now this store loses money. Barry says they cover about 85% of their costs. Panera makes up the rest.
DB: Do you think this place will be here in a year?
BC: Yes. I know it will be here in a year.
DB: What makes you so sure?
BC: Because we run it right. And treat people with respect.
SG: And it was actually a really nice thing to see. We saw customers on laptops next to people in need eating free loaves of unsliced bread out of the bag. There were people volunteering in exchange for food.
DB: Yeah, I kept thinking about Giana's critique of this place. And yet while we were there, we met mostly people who were benefitting from it. Like Heather and Steven who eat there regularly.
HEATHER: I heard about it when I was at a homeless shelter.
STEVEN: It is known throughout the homeless community that this is a safe haven so...yeah and there was a rumor and I was like 'where is it?' And then they told me 'they'll give you a free breakfast, but if you want something else, lunch or dinner, come back, do an hour's work and they'll pay you in food to do it.' They honestly took care of me when I don't have a meal to eat. I come in here, get warm, get something to eat.
DB: And we met Bia, who comes on Thursdays to pick up leftover pastries.
SG: What do you do with them?
BIA: This goes to all of the members of the church. Anyone at the church.
DB: Panera Cares may not be THE solution, but it's definitely helping some people. And in the end, I felt so guilty about just giving just 32 cents, that I dropped a few more bucks in the bin.
SG: I'm gonna try this broccoli cheddar soup you recommended! Oh, your sandwich looks good, now I wish I would've gotten a sandwich.
DB: Been a long wait for this sandwich.
SG: Alright this cheddar broccoli soup is like good but I don't know if it's as...yeah, it's good.
DB: Thanks to NPR's Sara Gonzalez of Planet Money for coreporting this with us. After the break, what happens when a brand loses control of its own name? Customer service is on the case...the staircase.
ACT III
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Thank you for calling customer service where we answer all your burning questions about brands. This call may be recorded for podcast purposes.
DB: Hi Household Name customer service. Can I have your name, please?
ALEXIS: Hi, this is Alexis from Omaha, Nebraska.
DB: And what's your question for us?
ALEXIS: So years ago, I read an article somewhere that stated escalator was once a trademark name, but according to the article, the trademark was lost and the name became so generic that people used to refer escalator to the entire industry instead of just that brand. Is that true? And if it is, why hasn't it happened with Band-aid?
DB: Alright well as always I have no idea but here at customer service I'm going to find someone who does. Can you hold please?
ALEXIS: Mhm.
DB: Hey Alexis?
ALEXIS: Yeah!
DB: I have someone who can help. It is our producer Anna Mazarakis, who is here with some answers.
ANNA MAZARAKIS: Hi Alexis!
ALEXIS: Hi, Anna.
AM: Thank you for your question! So as you said, both escalator and Band-aid started off as trademark brand names, but Band-aid has been able to hold onto that trademark while escalator has lost it. And there's actually a word for the phenomenon of a brand losing its trademark and becoming generic and that word is genericide.
DB: Why isn't is "brandocide," it's the brand that's being killed not the generic.
AM: Yeah, that makes sense, but I spoke to a lawyer who says that looking at genericide like something was killed is not too far off base.
LORA GRAENTZDOERFFER: Folks refer to terms that have become generic as going to the graveyard and that it's the death of the trademark.
AM: This is Lora Graentzdoerffer and she's on the International Trademark Association's Famous and Well-Known Marks Committee and she leads their genericide objective. And she told me many people don't realize that going generic is a bad thing.
LG: I once had a colleague in marketing tell me that she originally thought if consumers used your trademark to describe your product that you'd made it. But this could not be actually further from the truth.
AM: And to understand why, let's go back in time… to the turn of the 20th century. To the birth of the escalator. Which was REALLY a brand of moving staircases.
Otis is the oldest elevator company and they trademarked the name "escalator," a moving staircase.
DB: Wow I've never heard them called anything but escalator, they're called moving staircases?
Anna: Yeah. The Escalator was just one brand of moving staircases back in 1900. There was a competitor called The Electric Stairway. Another went by Moving Stairs.
But the name escalator caught on with the public. And Otis didn't do what it needed to do to protect the escalator's good trademarked name from genericide.
Dan: So what did they do?
Anna: So first, Otis only called it an escalator…. It didn't call it something like "The Escalator brand of moving stairway."
LG: So everyone was saying escalator. And what they should have done there is say escalator moving stairway because escalator would be the brand, and the moving stairway is the product itself.
AM: The next mistake Otis made was referring to escalator in the plural.
DB: Wait why is it even bad to call it escalators?
AM: Because you want the trademark to label the product, not be the product.
LG: If you have a trademark, you want to make sure that you're not having it be plural, that you are not treating it as a noun, that you're treating it as an adjective, and always making sure that you have that product or service after it. So Escalator moving stairways would have been how they would've treated it there.
AM: And Otis made these mistakes for years. And this came to haunt Otis in a big way.
LG: After those 50 years, someone went and challenged the trademark and said 'you no longer have the rights to exclude others from using this term because everyone out there is now using it to describe a moving staircase instead of saying a moving staircase.'
AM: So the court took a look at the evidence behind this challenge and decided that because of how Otis was using the word "escalator," it had become generic. The court ruled that the company failed to protect its trademark, and therefore any company could then use the term "escalator" for their brands of moving staircases.
Dan: A big fall for the escalator.
Anna: And it's not just Escalator. Here are some other terms that have become generic, but were once trademarks, like aspirin, cellophane, thermos, laundromat, yo-yo, zipper, TV dinner.
And that's really bad for the companies because once a brand becomes generic, the company loses a big competitive advantage. Anyone can call their product by that name and get all the benefits associated with that product's name recognition and that product's reputation for quality.
But not Band Aid. It's one of the brands that's managed to hold onto its trademark, even though most of us just call any kind of little bandage, a band aid.
DB: Yeah, like if I get a cut I just pick up a band aid but I might just buy the store brand.
AM: But let me show you a box of Band Aids. Do you see these?
DB: Yeah so at the top, it says Band Aid in really big letters, and then in very small type right under that it says "brand adhesive bandages" so I guess from now on I'm going to ask for Band Aid brand adhesive bandages.
AM: Yeah! And that's because Johnson & Johnson knows what it's doing. So they almost made the same mistake as Otis with the escalator, and I guess they could have gone generic but they made a crucial change.
LG: If you think back years ago, Band-Aid had a jingle...
BAND AID JINGLE: I'm stuck Band-Aid because Band-Aid's stuck on me.
LG: And this was not proper use of their own trademark but they definitely changed that in their own material and now everytime they say Band-Aid, they say Band-Aid brand…
BAND AID JINGLE: I'm stuck Band-Aid brand because Band-Aid brand's stuck on me.
LG: They made sure that they are treating it properly and that's one of the ways that you can avoid that is by making sure that you're treating it properly.
AM: So that's how Band-Aid got to hold onto its trademark.
DB: So this actually answers I question I've always had, why companies say the word "brand" after their brand. And this makes perfect sense now.
AM: Yeah, and you can see other companies fighting to preserve their trademark. Like take Velcro. Velcro is actually a brand of something called a "hook and loop" fastener.
DB: I don't believe it.
AM: And that's the problem the company is fighting.
VELCRO PSA: We're gonna lose our circled R. This is called hook and loop. This part's the hook, this part's the loop. You call it velcro but we're begging you: this is f-[bleep]-ing hook and loop.
Anna: Velcro made this video with singing lawyers to... explain what's at risk.
VELCRO PSA: We're asking you not to say a name we took 60 plus years to build. But if you keep calling these velcro shoes, our trademark will get killed.
LG: That was part of their strategy to educate consumers, was to get a very humorous video out there and make sure that folks know Velcro is a trademark and the product is hook and loop fastener. So if another company makes hook and loop fastener, it isn't called Velcro, it's called hook and loop fastener, and Velcro only comes from their company and that was the point of the video.
VELCRO PSA: It's more fun to say but if you keep doing it, our trademarks go away...
AM: So what's at risk for Velcro or Band Aid and what happened to Escalator is that as soon as the name goes generic, it can be a death knell for the brand...and the company that created it.
DB: That's why it's called genericide.
AM: Exactly.
DB: Alright. Alexis, are you satisfied with your Customer Service today?
ALEXIS: Yes I am, that's really interesting I guess I'll write "adhesive bandage" on my grocery list from now on.
DB: [laughter] Great, well thank you so much for calling customer service!
ALEXIS: Thanks, have a great day.
DB: You too!
AM: Thank you!
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Do you have a question? Call us at 7313-BRANDS.
CREDITS:
DB: If you have comments or a story idea e-mail us at householdname@insider.com Special thanks to Susan Dobscha, who co-authored all that research on consumer behavior that Giana Eckhardt told us about.
Today's show was produced by Darian Woods and Sally Helm at Planet Money, and Sarah Wyman, Anna Mazarakis, and Amy Pedulla here at Household Name.
Planet Money is edited by Bryant Urstadt. Our show is edited by Gianna Palmer.
Sound design and original music by Casey Holford and John DeLore.
The executive producers at Household Name are Chris Bannon, Jenny Radelet, and me.
Household Name is a production of Insider Audio.
Coming up on season 2 of Household Name:
We're taking on Crocs. How are these clunky, waterproof, brightly colored clogs still around, and dare I say it, cool?
CROC CLIP:
That's the thing is that they are, I mean, we can say, they are kind of ugly are they not?
Oh, these? Oh my God I can't believe I'm even pausing.
At the store I found a pair and bought them and tried them on and that's when my love affair with Crocs began.
DB: The Crocs brand keeps surviving near-death experiences, but now real fashion houses are all over Crocs, literally. Plus they're in at least one guy.
CROC CLIP: I'm Gunnar Lundberg, and I was eighteen years old when I decided to eat my Croc.
DB: Also up this season, we'll look back at the iconic 1984 Apple commercial that introduced the Macintosh to the world and changed Superbowl advertising forever.
APPLE CLIP:
Did you ever think this ad would have this much staying power and influence?
I didn't. I honestly didn't and I'm still kind of curious.
On January 24th, Apple computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.
DB: And, we head to Ukraine to solve an Amazon mystery. One of our listeners bought a classic book on Amazon and it looked a little odd. The book was too big, the type was too small, and then she noticed a logo in Cyrillic. It's a story that took us to Kiev.
AMAZON CLIP: They have a ton of stuff here but they do not have Danielle's copy of Pride and Prejudice unfortunately. Let's keep going...
DB: That's coming up this season on Household Name.
Hey Household Name listeners, we are back for season 2 of the show...and maybe you should follow me on Twitter? My handle is @danbobkoff that's D-A-N B-O-B-K-O-F-F. Remember, my name is not Bob, that comes up a lot. Tweet at me at the hashtag Household Name Podcast and share story ideas with our team. We've gotten some really great ideas that way and also lots of great pictures come in, some people sent us pictures of old Blockbusters they found and mattress stores in their community so join the conversation there. Maybe you're noticing something about big brands that we're not so let us know. That's @danbobkoff and the #householdnamepodcast and we'll see you here next week!
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