The Nostalgia Index™: Why Most Rebrands Fail Before They Start
Why do so many rebrands crash and burn? Because companies forget the one thing you can’t buy: nostalgia. The Nostalgia Index™ is a simple way to measure it before you accidentally piss off your audience.
Image created with generative Ai.
You’ve seen it before: a big, shiny rebrand drops, the internet explodes in mockery, and within weeks the company quietly scurries back to its old look. Gap’s infamous 2010 logo fiasco. Tropicana’s carton redesign that lasted all of two months. Mostly recently, Crack Barrel’s failed attempt to remove their ‘old timer.’
These aren’t failures of design talent. They’re failures of memory. Companies forget that their brand isn’t just artwork — it’s a collection of emotional anchors buried in their audience’s brains. Mess with those anchors, and you’re not just “modernizing.” You’re cutting the cord on decades of trust and familiarity.
So here’s a radical thought: if we can measure user sentiment in UX, why can’t we measure audience nostalgia in branding?
Enter: The Nostalgia Index™.
The Real Problem With Rebrands
Executives usually frame rebrands as progress:
We’ve outgrown the old look.
We need to appear more modern.
This signals a new era for the company.
All fine reasons. But they forget that customers aren’t living in the boardroom. Customers are living in their kitchens, their cars, their childhood bedrooms — where the old logo is tied to real life memories. That logo might be on the cereal they ate before school. That tagline might remind them of Saturday morning cartoons.
Nostalgia is cheap trust. You can’t buy it. You can only earn it over time. And if you throw it out in one swoop, you’re gambling with goodwill you may never get back.
Introducing The Nostalgia Index™
Here’s the pitch: instead of treating nostalgia as a fuzzy “vibe,” let’s treat it like a metric. A simple, structured way to understand how much emotional weight your old brand carries.
The Nostalgia Index™ has three dimensions:
1. Cognitive Recall
Do people remember the old stuff?
Test recall of logos, slogans, jingles.
Example metric: % of people who can identify or describe your legacy brand elements.
2. Emotional Valence
How do they feel when reminded?
Use Likert scales or word associations: “This old logo makes me feel… warm / proud / embarrassed / indifferent.”
Example metric: average emotional affinity score.
3. Behavioral Impact
Does nostalgia change choices?
A/B test new vs. retro packaging.
Track social spikes when you lean into heritage in campaigns.
Example metric: relative lift in engagement or purchase.
Combine them into a weighted score — voilà, your Nostalgia Index.
Triangle diagram showing the three dimensions of The Nostalgia Index™ (Cognitive Recall, Emotional Valence, Behavioral Impact).
How to Use the Index
Before a Rebrand
Run a quick nostalgia test. If your audience scores high, tread carefully. Maybe don’t toss everything. Maybe keep the mascot. Or at least explain why you’re making changes.
During a Rebrand
Phase it in. Slow burns work better than sudden amputations. Google, for example, evolved its logo dozens of times without ever shocking the system.
After a Rebrand
Keep measuring. Did the nostalgia score drop like a rock? That’s your early warning signal. Did it stabilize or even rebound as people embraced the new look? Great, you threaded the needle.
Sample timeline chart showing how nostalgia scores can shift before, during, and after a rebrand.
What Happens If You Ignore It
Ask Tropicana. They lost $30 million in sales in less than two months after their redesign. Why? Customers couldn’t find “their” juice anymore. It wasn’t just a packaging change; it was a memory wipe.
Ask Gap. Their shiny new logo survived all of six days. Nostalgia backlash was so fierce they ditched it almost immediately.
And more recently, ask Cracker Barrel. Their attempt to modernize their image by downplaying the very “country charm” that made them iconic sparked outrage among their loyal base. For decades, the brand signaled comfort food and nostalgia for road trips — until they started sanding off the rustic edges. Customers didn’t see it as progress; they saw it as betrayal.
These weren’t just bad designs — they were nostalgia blindspots.
Beyond Branding
While The Nostalgia Index is aimed at branding and rebrands, you’ll see echoes everywhere:
UX/Product Design: That classic “File > Edit > View” menu at the top of apps? Remove it, and watch chaos ensue.
Entertainment: Hollywood reboots bank entirely on nostalgia. Some soar (Cobra Kai), others flop (every bad remake you’ve forgotten).
Politics: Campaign slogans recycled for emotional resonance. (“Make America Great Again” wasn’t new — it was Reagan’s in the 1980s.)
The lesson: nostalgia isn’t just a soft feeling. It’s a design constraint you ignore at your peril.
Try It Yourself: A Mini Nostalgia Index
Here are three quick questions you can ask your audience tomorrow:
Do you remember the old [logo/tagline/jingle]? (Yes/No)
How do you feel about it? (Positive/Neutral/Negative)
Would you choose a product with the old branding over the new? (Yes/No/Maybe)
Congratulations, you’ve just run your first Nostalgia Index test.
The Takeaway
Rebrands don’t fail because they’re ugly. They fail because they erase memory.
The Nostalgia Index gives you a way to measure that memory before you kill it. It won’t guarantee success, but it will keep you from being the next Gap headline.
Or put another way: don’t piss off your audience. Respect their memories, and they’ll forgive you for changing. Ignore nostalgia, and they’ll never forgive you for forgetting them.
Turning Payroll Into a Tax Strategy
What if the tax code rewarded companies for paying people well? This post explores a simple idea: lower corporate taxes for firms that shrink the CEO-to-worker pay gap and grow full-time jobs. More people, better pay, fewer taxes—it’s a win for workers and the economy.”
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America’s tax code rewards all kinds of things: owning property, making investments, even parking your money offshore. But what if it rewarded something more fundamental—something that could reshape work and wages for millions of people?
Imagine this: the more people a company employs, and the better those employees are paid, the less that company pays in corporate taxes.
That’s it. Simple, direct, and fair.
The Core Idea
Pay Equity: Companies that narrow the gap between average worker pay and CEO pay earn lower tax rates. (For context: CEOs at S&P 500 firms make over 270 times what their average employee earns. In 1980, that ratio was about 30 to 1.)
Employment Growth: Companies that hire more full-time American workers (with benefits) also earn lower tax rates.
Annual Average Counts: Employee numbers are calculated on an annual average, so no company can game the system by hiring a bunch of workers on December 31.
No Loopholes: Contractors don’t count. Only full-time Americans, benefit-receiving employees are eligible.
This flips the incentive structure. Instead of rewarding stock buybacks, executive bonuses, or short-term profit grabs, companies now see tax relief when they strengthen their payrolls—the backbone of any healthy economy.
Why It Works
Paychecks Drive Growth: Wages aren’t just a line item—they’re fuel. Every extra $1 in wages for a low- or middle-income worker adds about $1.50 to $2.00 in economic activity because that money gets spent in the real economy.
CEO Pay vs. Worker Pay: At companies where executives make over 300x more than their workers, morale and retention plummet. A narrower gap keeps both people and profits healthier.
Encourages Hiring at Home: Imagine a system where a company adding 1,000 middle-class jobs could lower its tax rate by several percentage points. Suddenly, investing in people is as attractive as investing in machinery.
Possible Add-Ons
Employee Health Modifier: Healthier employees lower insurance costs for everyone. U.S. companies lose about $225 billion per year in productivity from illness-related absenteeism. Cutting that bill is a win-win.
Debt Reduction Modifier: U.S. workers hold about $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. Companies that help reduce it could unlock even more spending power.
Tariff Relief: For companies hitting equity and employment targets, tariffs on imported supplies could be lowered or removed—further reducing costs and boosting competitiveness.
These modifiers make the system holistic. It’s not just about more jobs—it’s about better jobs.
The Genius of It
This isn’t about punishing success; it’s about rewarding responsibility. Companies that truly share prosperity with their people get to keep more of their own profits. It reframes corporate taxes from a penalty for making money to a discount for making money the right way.
Instead of debates over minimum wage hikes, we could let the market respond to a smarter tax code. Want to pay your CEO 600x more than your average worker? Fine, but it’ll cost you. Want to expand your payroll and pay people fairly? You’ll see your tax bill shrink.
Closing Thought
For too long, we’ve designed our system around the myth that shareholder value is the only value. A payroll-based tax code says otherwise. It says: if you build a company that pays well, hires broadly, and treats people like assets instead of costs—you deserve a break.
It’s a win for workers, a win for responsible companies, and a win for the economy.
The Most Valuable Product the USPS Could Ever Sell is…Nothing.
Every day, millions of Americans receive something they didn’t ask for, don’t want, and promptly throw away: junk mail. It’s the analog equivalent of spam, except with greater environmental damage and less entertainment value.
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A Behavioral Economics Argument for Ending Junk Mail, elegantly
Every day, millions of Americans receive something they didn’t ask for, don’t want, and promptly throw away: junk mail. It’s the analogue equivalent of spam, except with greater environmental damage and less entertainment value.
And yet, it persists. Why?
Because no one has figured out how to monetize the absence of something–until now
Introducing: The Paid Opt-Out
For just $1/month, citizens could finally pay not to receive junk. This is not merely a digital convenience–it’s a symbolic gesture, an act of control, a tiny luxury. It’s the postal version of a Do Not Disturb sign, except it’s government-backed and carbon-saving.
Imagine:
No more “Current Resident” junk
No more catalogues you never ordered.
No more pretending to recycle things you clearly won’t.
This is an elegant bit of “psychological judo”: letting the consumer take control, and letting the USPS profit from what doesn’t deliver.
Why This Works (and Why it’s Inevitable)
1. People Value Control More than Utility
Nobody asked for most of what they receive in their mailbox. But they’d pay a small price to say no–not because of logic, but because freedom from interruption is increasingly rare.
2. The USPS Wastes Money Delivering Waste
Marketing mail is to USPS what low-fat margarine is to cooking: it’s what you’re left with when no one wants to pay for the real thing. The system doesn’t just waste money–it wastes the brand equity of the USPS itself.
3. Incentives Beat Regulation
The moment USPS makes money from delivering less, the incentives align with environmentalism, efficiency, and consumer satisfaction–all without needing to shame businesses or police consumers.
4. You Can Sell ‘Nothing’–if it Feels Like Something
This isn’t about saving trees (though it does). It’s about saving time, mental space, and dinner-table space. It’s luxury by subtraction–an ethos even Apple would admire.
And for Business?
They’ll be required to scrub their lists, yes–but what they gain is trust. Why market to someone who has paid to never hear from you? Filtering out the uninterested leads to higher ROI, clearer data, and less wasteful printing. It’s segmentation by consent.
The opportunity
This is not an operational fix. It’s a brand renaissance.
USPS has the chance to go from being a begrudged necessity to a champion of relevance. To become the only institution bold enough to say:" “We respect your time–and your bin space.”
This is a modest proposal with profound implications.
And it starts by selling nothing.