At it’s best, rebranding is a process that…
- Is based in research and strategy
- Solves a specific business goal or problem
- Positions the company uniquely in its category
- Resonates with the target audience
- Clarifies brand offerings, mission, or story
- Sets the company up for future success
It would be easy to dismiss Cracker Barrel’s redesign as another example of a poorly designed logo. But the logo itself wasn’t the real problem.
The larger failure was attempting to attract a new audience without protecting the emotional connection that made the existing brand valuable.
The main issues CB were facing:
Demographics
- The biggest category of guests (26%) are 65+
- Less than half of their customer base (37%) is under 45
Declining Sales
- Obvious big hit during Covid, followed by an encouraging climb over the next few Quarters
- Big uptick as people got out of their houses and back on the road in 2021/2022
- Downhill since then
Declining Stock Value
- Stock price took a big hit in 2020 but recovered to pre-Pandemic levels in 2021
- A steady decline since then
So they needed to capture a new, younger audience and boost market value, a rebrand can help with that.
The Real Mistake
Cracker Barrel said Uncle Herschel was still part of the family, but the initial rollout offered little evidence that he would continue to play a meaningful role in the brand.
Removing him from the primary logo could have worked if the company had introduced a broader identity system that kept him visible through secondary marks, packaging, advertising, merchandise and restaurant touchpoints.
Think of the role Colonel Sanders continues to play for KFC. He doesn’t have to appear in exactly the same way everywhere, but he remains a recognizable character and an essential connection to the brand’s history.
Cracker Barrel could have modernized Uncle Herschel rather than making him appear disposable.
That distinction matters. When customers have a deep emotional relationship with a brand, familiar assets are not merely decorative. They represent memories, traditions and expectations.
The brand supported the rollout with an “All the More” campaign, new photography, packaging, video and a New York City pop-up featuring country artist Jordan Davis.
But Cracker Barrel has no location in New York City, with the nearest restaurant more than 40 miles away in New Jersey. The experience may have generated attention, but it wasn’t meaningfully connected to the people most likely to visit a Cracker Barrel.
A brand transformation should be introduced where the brand actually lives—in its restaurants, its communities and among the customers who interact with it regularly.
It’s a fine line between listening to your customers and getting bullied into backpedaling
Despite all of the controversy surrounding the “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign, it ended up being American Eagle’s most successful one in its history.
“The campaign generated nearly 1 million new customers between late July and early September and the brand managed to grow in every county in America in Q2. Products worn for the collaboration, including a limited-edition pair of butterfly-embellished jeans, flew off the shelves.”
That being said, a stronger campaign could have centered around family, trips to CB with the grandparents, road trips, seeing the sign on the highway, tapping into the popularity of nostalgia plays.
This could have pulled at the heart strings of people who were brought here as kids, who now can choose to go there now, make new memories with their own kids.
The Lesson for Every Established Brand
Successful rebranding is not about making a company look newer. It is about making the company more relevant while preserving the distinct qualities people already value.
Cracker Barrel needed to evolve. It still does.
But the company treated some of its most valuable brand assets as obstacles to modernization when they could have been the foundation for it.
The failure wasn’t that Cracker Barrel tried to change. The failure was believing it needed to become less like Cracker Barrel in order to grow.