Lesson Learned

 If you haven’t eaten the “comfort food” at Cracker Barrel, enjoyed the old-fashioned country accoutrements adorning the walls, and shopped in their “country store,” as I have when travelling across the south, you probably won’t care that they changed their logo and are “modernizing” their restaurants. Even if you have, you may not consider their corporate re-do an existential crisis. But there’s more to the story than the fact that the company lost nearly $100 million in market value when its stock plunged after releasing its new logo. According to a creative director specializing in brand development, what Cracker Barrel has done is a textbook case of how not to rebrand. Evidently, the company’s core message is, “We don’t care about our core audience. We’re too busy trying to appeal to everyone and satisfying no one.” In corporate leadership’s view, despite their explanations, corporate leadership believes Cracker Barrel lost its brand identity by removing key elements that customers valued, prompting a reversal of the decision. The lesson is simple: Don't change what works; only fix what's broken, the logo and country store atmosphere weren't the issue.