Cracking the Barrel
I’m admittingly a little late to the party on the Cracker Barrel re-brand fiasco. But now that the hysteria is over – and the Tennessee-headquartered restaurant chain has done a U-turn and reverted back to their old logo – I thought it’d be helpful to take a deep breath and try to suss out what went wrong.
First, no politics please. Whether the rebrand failed because it was “too woke” is for others to consider. There isn’t enough space in a 1,000-word blog, nor do I have any desire to wade into those toxic waters.
And two, I won’t comment on the quality of Cracker Barrel’s food and service. As an American who has lived in Hong Kong for two decades, I haven’t had the opportunity to chow down on Cracker Barrel’s tasty biscuits in a long time. Though I acknowledge that some reports suggest many customers are dissatisfied these days… microwaved meatloaf, anyone?
Instead, I’ll focus on what seems to have gone wrong from a project management point of view: my best “guesstimate”, if you will, offered as an outsider with limited information but who also has a bit of experience in the field.
After all, here at New Narrative we help large companies shape, define and refine client and stakeholder connections and experiences, highlighting a brand’s most compelling attributes – so we’ve likely encountered these challenges with our own client work.
Who am I?
A brand overhaul is often an attempt to resolve an identity crisis, though unlike a private matter that is resolved in solitude, a corporate identity crisis is a very public affair.
For the sake of argument, let’s proceed by assuming that the resolution of an identity crisis starts with embracing one of three postures. These are:
Yeah, I know: Many of us fantasise that we are fearless iconoclasts who have the risk appetite and strength of character to fall into category one. But I haven’t met many during my time on this planet, and I doubt you have either, dear reader.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that most of us, both individuals and companies, fall into category three: strong and decent in character while occasionally making modifications – either consciously or subconsciously – because of external expectations, whether that’s pressure from clients, customers, parents or peers.
(*NB: Hopefully, we can agree that no one with integrity respects those who dwell most of the time in category two – the “I will be whatever you want me to be” types. But that’s another, long story).
A delicate dance
Which brings us to Cracker Barrel’s dilemma.
Their actions in regard to the re-brand fall into category three. They clearly had a core brand that they didn’t want to discard. The original logo’s signature elements — the mustard yellow colour, and even the intertwined “C” and “B” in a similar font — remained intact in the redesigned version.
However, they ditched ol’ Uncle Herschel, and they removed the tagline “Old Country Store.”
Based on the hundreds of LinkedIn posts on this matter, it appears the re-brand was due to a combination of internal and external pressure:
Fair enough.
But alas, the devil is in the details.
At New Narrative, the first question we would have asked is as follows: Did you survey your customers and clearly identify what they value about the Cracker Barrel experience? Or are you only responding to broad trends, such as revenue decline and cultural shifts?
We would also ask: Are you building authentic connections with your customer groups? Do you have what my colleague Rashmi Jolly calls The Empathy Edge – a holistic understanding of your brand’s context and story, and the links that story has to customer experiences?
Soggy results
Now, I’m not saying that Cracker Barrel’s agency partners didn’t ask these questions. I assume they did.
Unfortunately, however, the outcome of the re-brand – vitriol splattered across the internet, a tanking share price, and a rapid U-turn and the reinstatement of the old logo – suggests that Cracker Barrel did not do enough due diligence beforehand.
What might have happened?
Hypothesis 1: The C-Suite and Board were blinded by their own ambitions, and didn’t take the sufficient time to actually listen to their customers.
I’ve worked for companies like this. They tinker in the laboratory and spend millions on some project they consider genius, never stopping to wonder if anyone actually wants what they’re planning to offer. Oh, the danger of echo chambers.
Hypothesis 2: Cracker Barrel executives suspected that their customers were not prepared for the re-brand but proceeded anyway. They know best, right?
After all, didn’t that veritable genius Steve Jobs once say to hell with market research? “Some people say, ‘Give the customers what they want.’ But that's not my approach,” Jobs once said. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do.”
We can’t all be as prescient as Steve Jobs. Sorry.
Hypothesis 3: Large groups of Cracker Barrel customers demand vastly different experiences – some want the old, and others want something new. They didn't precisely define and quantify these customer segments, so the team moved forward with broad strokes, trying to appeal to everybody.
The problem is it’s impossible to be all things to all people and still have an identity.
A bland soup
In the end, the problem with the Cracker Barrel logo update is that it is neither here nor there. Fans who cherish the nostalgic, country charm of the original feel it’s no longer “country enough” — it softens some of that rustic appeal that old timers loved.
At the same time, the redesign also failed to lean fully into a modern, bold re-imagination that might attract a new generation. You can almost hear their marketing agency’s pitch for a more radical break from tradition, which was hemmed in by the brand’s reluctance to let go of recognisable identifiers.
The consequence was a new identity caught between nostalgia and progress, unable to fully embrace either side. This indecision highlights a broader challenge in branding: the difficulty of balancing authenticity with adaptation in a way that feels genuine and bold, rather than restrained and uninspired.
Unfortunately, Cracker Barrel’s rapid U-turn after the uproar revealed that they pushed forward with a rebrand that a huge swathe of their customers didn’t want and, following the fiasco, they didn’t have the strength to stand by their new vision for the brand. Now they are in a Catch-22 and will likely receive criticism no matter what they do.
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