Key Takeaways
• Cracker Barrel’s logo redesign sparked widespread backlash, with many customers feeling the minimalist update disregarded the brand’s legacy and identity.
• The rebrand had tangible financial consequences, including a nearly $100 million drop in market value, highlighting how deeply brand visuals can impact consumer perception and investor confidence.
• Modernizing a legacy brand requires careful balance, respecting historical elements while evolving thoughtfully – otherwise, it risks alienating loyal stakeholders.
A rebrand isn’t always a welcome face lift. Sometimes it’s an opportunity for a company to bring itself into the present age through simple tweaks and modernizations. Other times, it seems like it was simply done for the sake of having something new, or perhaps at the advice of an overeager branding “expert” who doesn’t fully get what the customer’s brand aesthetic is.
One could argue that the latter is what happened with Cracker Barrel.
If you’re even remotely online, you’ve probably seen people arguing about Cracker Barrel’s new logo. Cracker Barrel isn’t a brand that’s often the main character of online debate, so this itself is interesting. And it’s also proof that not all publicity is good publicity, as the restaurant chain’s new minimalist logo that nixes the guy sitting with the barrel in favor of simple word art, has plenty of people riled up – and not in a good way.
The debate and the memes are too plentiful and too far-reaching to get into right now. What we can say for sure is that a logo and aesthetic brand carry weight. To say nothing of the public outcry online, it seems to be having actual effects on the business model of Cracker Barrel.
CBS News reported last week that the restaurant chain’s market value dropped almost $100 million after stocks plunged with the new logo’s release. The report says that shares fell to $4.22 from $54.80 on Thursday – a total drop of $94 million in market value. Earlier in the day it dropped to a low of $50.27, which represented a loss of nearly $200 million.
This is all over a logo, remember. But, the change in the logo is representative of a changing business model. The company’s hierarchy did say that it would reflect a modernization and eventual change in menu. What this says for any promotional products distributor paying attention is that a logo, as simple as it might be, is the visual representation of the brand and its history – everything that the brand does and is, compressed and personified in a combination of colors, shapes and letters. To change that is to change the very nature of the business.
And, historically, many people don’t like change.
“Our values haven’t changed,” the company said, according to CBS, “and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel haven’t changed.”
It also admitted that the public freak-out has “shown us that we could’ve done a better job sharing who we are and who we’ll always be.”
It’s sort of the business equivalent of a dad shaving his trademark mustache, and the kids melting down because now his face looks different and, thus, he is a different person.
That’s a joke, but there’s a kernel of truth here.
The brand and logo for your clients must be treated with respect. You can’t mess with colors or place it in a way that transforms it too drastically. You also wouldn’t want to place it on an item that would run counter to the ethos of the brand you’re representing.
If you are working with a company that wants to spruce up its aesthetic a little, treat the modernization in a way that doesn’t throw out the old completely.
“If you are a legacy brand and you’re modernizing, you have to make sure you’ve appropriately honored that legacy, because at the end of the day, your stakeholders own your brand – you don’t,” Carreen Winters, president of reputation at MikeWorldWide, told CBS. “Not understanding the customer and the rest of the stakeholders and what they care about really matters, and that seems to be what went awry here.”
Cracker Barrel’s marketing team has since backtracked on the idea. David Johnson, CEO of branding agency Strategic Vision PR Group, called the new logo design a “flop,” according to the BBC. Cracker Barrel even posted a statement on X confirming that the classic logo, complete with the “Old Timer,” will remain.
Of course, the memes continued in the replies, but such is the life of a modern business that exists online. And remember, all of this debate, complete with the president weighing in, was over a corporate logo.
