The Ben Mulroney Show - And That's The Way The Crumbl Cookie Crumbles, Plus Dynamic Pricing Backlash

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Tony Chapman, host of the award winning podcast Chatter that Matters, and Founding Partner of Chatter AI. Tony discusses the crumbling of a cookie empire, and heavyweights Walmart and McDonald's attempt to defend dynamic pricing practices. TikTok: @chatterthatmatters  Instagram @chatterthatmatters LinkedIn: @tonychapmanreactions YouTube: @ChatterthatMatters Facebook: Chatter That Matters X/Twitter: @TonyChapman Primary hashtag: #ChatterThatMatters If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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But in a city like Toronto, I know that there's at least one outpost here. And I remember my daughter begging me to go to the store to get her some. crumble cookies for her and her friends. And so I went after work. Must have been about six months ago. Probably somewhere in the, yeah, sometimes, no, more than that. It was during like the winter last year. And, uh, and I went in and I could appreciate why it was such a social media, uh, darling, because the whole process was just designed for people to take pictures of. And I always thought to myself, like, I didn't try the cookies. I brought them home and gave them my daughter and she was very excited. Uh, I, and I heard from people,

who said that they were not good cookies. But apparently now, the entire process, like nobody's eating these cookies anymore. Apparently, they are closing down shops left, right and center. Some people, sadly, who became franchisees, are losing their life savings because they hits themselves to a wagon and the wheels have come off. And the question is, like, what happened?

What happened? Well, you know, the person, ask is the person who just joined us. Tony Chapman, host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters. He's the founding partner of Chatterer AI. You can find them all over Instagram, Chatter That Matters, TikTok, Chatter That Matters, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. Tony Chapman is there. Tony, welcome. Always a pleasure. Great introduction. Why is nobody eating crumble cookies anymore? Well, I think what they really did was they mastered attention. Yeah. But what they fail to do

is create this affection. And it's a big difference. So you can come out big and it's like a rocket ship. Everybody gets excited. If you're missing out, I've got to be part of it. I've got to get my picture. I've got to be culturally relevant. But if your product doesn't deliver,

if it fails to bring you back a second or third time, what you've got is you've got a lot of hype, a lot of money pouring in, a lot of stores being opened up. But then you create this vacuum. And this is what's happened. So they went off like a rocket ship. Everybody had to have it.

It became, I had to have a franchise, but without that repeat business, you've explained it so well. This product is going out of business. It's not going to be around in the coming weeks because it just doesn't have enough cachet to create the kind of loyalty we need.

And from what I understand, they tried to do something. They tried to create, like, induce demand by having, quote unquote, drops. Like, oh, we're going to have a special cookie for a short run. And after that, we're never going to have it again. And that can create,

like a false sense of demand. But the problem is as you are trying to roll that out across franchisees, different cookies bake at different temperatures, and you're not going to have that consistency, because you can't count on everybody to know how to do that new cookie every week or two weeks or 10, three weeks, you know? And so that inconsistency from what I understand was one of the reasons that people are like, yeah, we're done here.

I'm not going to keep going back every two weeks and it's going to be hit or miss. Let's break that down. First of all, it's a great marketing move when you create scarcity. I've got to get it now before it's gone. Yeah. That works really well when you've got a product, as you said, that you can execute incredibly well on. So if I actually said, oh, my, I have to get there for Wednesday. I'm going to miss out on the bumblebee raspberry version of this.

And I show up, but it doesn't taste great because the franchisees, and they don't march in order. This isn't something I put up in the cloud and it appears on my phone. And as you said, it requires ovens, part-time labor. It has to be baked properly. It has to be executed. And if you come down with social media and you can't wait to that you found this. And it turns out to be a disappointment. Yeah.

The blowback to the brand is immense and it happens overnight. You talk about the numbers. They're down 32% in the year, 70% in the last month. We're talking about a spiral. Yeah. You know, you rarely see in marketing in terms of, you know, you tend to die by a thousand penknife. wounds, but when a machete hits your brand, which is this is, you can't recover. And so that's the issue.

Execution for sure was the reason why. But scarcity, for sure, if you're a marketer and you can find a way to create something that creates tension and people have to have, that's fantastic, but you better be deliver when they show up. Well, you know, you want to talk about consistency. We talk about McDonald's, right? I mean, I remember when in 1993, I went to McDonald's in Russia. And I got a burger that tasted just like a burger I would have gotten in.

London or London, England or London, Ontario. And the same with the fries. And so they've mastered that. But now McDonald's and Walmart are defending against the backlash on dynamic pricing. Now, I understand when a Walmart might do it. But I didn't know McDonald's was getting in on dynamic pricing. And maybe tell people what dynamic pricing is. So dynamic pricing is, first of all, you went to Russia.

That was a Canadian, by the way, George Corolla. And the values were quality value service and cleanliness. matter where you got, you got the same McDonald's. And people love that consistency. Here's where dynamic pricing comes in. Because of AI, they feel that, for example, my umbrellas normally sell for $3.99. A monsoon hits. I know everybody's going to be coming in.

I'm going to sell out of those umbrellas. So I'm going to price them at $6.99. Yeah. I get to change the pricing. We know from airfares how that happens. You buy airfares. You're going on and you're looking for a price for your ticket to Vancouver. And you don't go through it.

They've got your cooking. Next time you go, the price has gone up. Yeah. So they say, oh, I have to buy it. That's dynamic price. It's using AI and is trying to match consumer demand with my inventory. Yeah. Where it gets ugly, and I think this is the word, ugly is the proper word, is if consumers are going in and they know you have a higher propensity to pay, you make more, they can change the price.

Or the fact that you're more desperate, they can change their price. Yeah, see, I don't like that. They're literally asking the question, how far can we push the consumer? to the point right before they break. And I don't know how you build a long-term relationship with that level of tension. Google search advertising's done it for years because they auction off their words to you.

And the more people that want it, for example, Halloween, if you happen to be in the business is selling something scary, you're going to pay a lot because you're bidding against others. That's dynamic pricing. Okay, but explain me how Walmart. So what are Walmart and McDonald's doing to defend against the notion of dynamic.

What they're saying is the consumer is never going to pay a penalty for where people are suspicious about it because now that you're seeing that when you go to the shelf at a Walmart, there's electronic price lines. They change. They can be dynamically changed. And what we know is they've tested is through AI. Again, if consumers are coming in and there's more demand for the product than the actual inventory, they feel they're going to sell.

out, they'll raise the prices. If they think there's too much inventory, not enough demand, they'll lower the prices. So sometimes it'll work in favor. You think they're going to lower the prices? If they're moving the inventory. So in other words, if they're stuck with a lot of inventory, it's called them price markdown. That's a strategy we see retail all the time. The end of the season, they're giving away the sweaters in spring because nobody wants a sweater. What happens though, when it happens during the day, that moment, that's where it gets nasty. And this is where consumers are fighting back saying you shouldn't have the ability to price the demand of your product based on our appetite to buy.

Yeah. I expect that sweater that is no longer in style to be cheaper. That's not dynamic pricing to me. That's just them recognizing that the wave is off. But if they've noticed that at 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, more people come in for French fries, you're going to jack up the price because of that? that again, it's how far can we push the consumer and our relationship with them before that relationship breaks?

If that's- AI feels they think they can do it. And you're right. This is an issue that we've got to deal with. Just because it happens to be a lot of demand, it doesn't give you the right to raise the prices. No, no. I can't imagine that that's going to end well, especially because McDonald's, for example, is already dealing with the fact that their food costs more than it used to. And for what was, you know, what we took solace in, okay, it's not.

the best food for you, but it's fast and it's reliable and it's cheap. And if you're taking the cheap out of it and you're making what's already more expensive, even more expensive because you think that the demand is there, I think it's going to, a different fast food joint is going to come in and say, hey, we don't do that. We're the anti-McDonnellans and we're going to give you that consistency. And we're going to give you a reliable price. It's always going to be the same price. If we raise the price, you'll know about it. You talk about the two things. Everyday low pricing is what Walmart stood for. You start changing. that is going to be an issue.

You talk about going back to Russia, quality, value, planning, and this service. They're playing with the word value at McDonald's is why the brand is hurting. Tony Chapman, always appreciate our chats, man. Always a pleasure. Back soon.