The Power of a Brand

Want to know what we mean by a retail brand? Consider White Castle: little hamburgers that you eat by the bagful, more inexpensive than tasty or nutritious.

So, to recap: cheap, probably not all that good for you and honestly not all that yummy.

But mix it together in the brand flux capacitor, and what you get is “beloved!”

Everybody has a White Castle experience. Everybody had one in the neighborhood, on a street corner, a late-night meeting place. Certain people used to go to their local White Castle at midnight for a bag of 10 because – well, we used to call it “the munchies.”

There was one located at the busiest intersection in the center of St. Matthews, the part of Louisville I live in. It’s been gone for more than 10 years, and yet you still get locals telling you to “turn left at the White Castle.” My wife tells me it was where everyone gathered on  Fridays or Saturday nights, after the movies or a party, when she was growing up.

Recently, a KFC unit closed on six-lane Shelbyville Road in the same neighborhood. (I thought the same thing: How could a KFC close in its own hometown? It would be like a Starbucks failing in Seattle. But I’ve heard there was some issue with the landlord.)

Not only is this location on the busiest commercial street running through East Louisville, but it’s also right across from Trinity High School. Think of 1400 young men in their Trinity green and white pouring out of school to go gather in a neighborhood hangout. In other words: primo location.

And the buzz began. White Castle! Really? Nobody wanted a Subway, Chick-fil-a or TCBY?

No, because the White Castle brand in this neighborhood – and I’d suspect in most neighborhoods – extends beyond the steamed hamburgers, the crinkly fries and the onion rings. It’s a nostalgic impulse that makes you feel warm, as if nothing has happened in the last 25 years. You didn’t get older, your jump shot is still nothing-but-net and your knees don’t hurt, gas is still 89 cents a gallon and nobody ever heard of credit default swaps.

One thing is very likely. Those hamburgers they fried up 25 years ago may still be sitting on a steam table in the back. But that’s okay. In fact, that’s a good thing. It’s the power of nostalgia – and that’s the power of this brand.