Strong branding has the power to take a product or service that might otherwise get lost in the noise and make it memorable. A&W seems to work the other way around. They have weak branding, but a great product. In fact, A&W might be the most underrated fast food chain out there (try the onion rings).

There are a couple of things in this commercial that really threw me off. Maybe you’ll see/hear them too.

Let’s get this out of the way first. That’s a Harvey’s logo in the back. When I first saw this I thought, “When did Harvey’s get a spokesperson, and why did they pick someone who looks like the A&W guy?

But the real elephant in the room is the sonic logo. It sounds like McDonald’s. In fact the first three notes are identical.

However this is not imitation.

Some of us might remember A&W’s original brand theme, which they used for many years, and way before the current McDonald’s audio logo.

Bringing back legacy assets is often a good thing. We covered this several blogs back. But the A&W theme is less a logo and more a groove. It takes time to establish itself and work its way into the commercial. It wasn’t designed to work as a four note logo.

The theme starts on an upbeat, but without any other musical context (like the rest of the piece), the brain assumes it’s starting on the first downbeat, making it sound more like McDonald’s.

The timbre doesn’t help either. That low brass sound was distinctive and memorable (and singable), but playing it on a piano just makes it sound more like McDonald’s. Ironically, the McDonald’s logo has probably been done with every instrument except the tuba.

Worth noting that A&W has two legacy assets they can draw upon – the musical theme and the mascot, which coincidentally are the two most effective assets out there.

A&W has a strong product, and strong legacy assets, but for whatever reason, they’re not using them to their full potential.