Did you hear about the uproar regarding Cracker Barrel announcing that they were rebranding and changing their logo? It was definitely much ado about nothing. Here is the definition of “ado” – “a state of agitation or fuss, especially about something unimportant.”
There are so many things you could lose your mind over right now, and the logo of a roadtrip roadside restaurant might not be the best use of your energy.
But the internet clearly felt differently. The uproar and outrage around updating a beloved brand was quite surprising, at least to me.
As an expert in customer loyalty, Carol Roth wrote a great opinion piece, “Cracker Barrel CEO serves up leftover corporate branding to unhappy customers.” She begins:
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, the chain of Southern-style restaurants with a gift shop that lines highways across America, has gotten a makeover.
Its logo has lost the “Old Country Store” tagline as well as the iconic man in a chair resting his arm on a barrel in favor of the words Cracker Barrel in text only. Inside, per patron videos of remodeled locations, gone is the dark nostalgic feel replaced with a sterile renovation. The knickknacks have gone from quirky kitsch from yesteryear to something you might see in a suburban craft store.
While the company’s CEO has said that initial reaction to these changes was positive, the verdict across social media was very much the opposite. The new look removes the old-school charm and character that was central to the brand’s identity for decades.
As it turned out, social media actually won this battle. Carol Roth posted on LinkedIn:
The moral of this story might be to not mess with people’s treasured memories. They seem to be extra precious these days.
Photo by Cassandra Ortiz on Unsplash
