BY John Feldhouse

Applebee’s Gets A Spokesapple

There are a million restaurants out there, and of those millions thousands are national franchises. Of these, unfortunately, there aren’t too many that really stand out — they all seem to blend together for some reason. Chili’s, T.G.I. Friday’s, Ruby Tuesdays (yes, they have a new logo too, to be reviewed here soon), and, the cause of this post, Appleebee’s, are only a few of them. They all have roughly the same vast menu, same average price, and same lackluster service. Most of these places are so cookie-cutter from the decor to the menu, it’s hard to differentiate between them. Close your eyes at any of them and take a sample of the food and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. But this is the exact thing Applebee’s hopes to fix. Applebee’s goal is to make a “special place for people to come together.”

And to do that they just updated to a new logo with the tagline “Together is good.” As a side, the use of Wanda Sykes as the “spokesapple” seems a little bit on the cheesy side, but might turn out to be a good move. It’s always risky to have a celebrity back your product due to personal biases. Let’s just hope people see the humor in the new campaign.

The new logo itself is just blah. (Yes, I know, so poignant a critique). The old mark was awful, but I think Applebee’s missed something in translation. The type on the new mark is alright, although the A really bugs me. I imagine Armin is loving the Cooper Black tagline. I think it is playful and does the job pretty well. The apple and its outline is a big annoyance though. The hues are so close together, why not just have a solid apple? The overall color scheme is appropriate and a nice evolution from the old one, but I would have liked to see something besides green for the tagline text.

I guess it’s just the combination of the okay logo and new advertising campaign — a speaking apple? really? — that makes me feel less than enthusiastic about this one. But at least that old typography on a street sign logo is gone. Make sure to check out the looping flash piece on their website! More information can be found reading the press release.

\n\nThere are a million restaurants out there, and of those millions thousands are national franchises. Of these, unfortunately, there aren't too many that really stand out — they all seem to blend together for some reason. Chili's, T.G.I. Friday's, Ruby Tuesdays (yes, they have a new logo too, to be reviewed here soon), and, the cause of this post, Appleebee's, are only a few of them. They all have roughly the same vast menu, same average price, and same lackluster service. Most of these places are so cookie-cutter from the decor to the menu, it's hard to differentiate between them. Close your eyes at any of them and take a sample of the food and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. But this is the exact thing Applebee's hopes to fix. Applebee's goal is to make a \"special place for people to come together.\"

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners