Cracker Barrel wasn’t wrong. Trying to update its logo, its menu, its décor and its perception among existing and potential new customers was not the wrong thing to do. The retail graveyard is full of businesses that failed to do so.
As the restaurant chain recoils from its seemingly disastrous attempt to do so — caught up in social media wars that included both bots and Donald Trump — it is coming under an avalanche of criticism for both its strategy and its execution. It really doesn’t deserve any of this and its retrenchment has the potential to eventually sink and ultimately destroy the company. Nostalgia only goes so far.
Logically and from a business management perspective, look at what it did. It created a new logo, one that modernized its existing branding, removing an anachronistic character image that it’s probably fair to say the majority of existing customers hadn’t paid much attention to in years…much less identified with. Potential new customers probably had no idea who this guy was and couldn’t have cared less who he was or what he stood for. Being more digitally friendly was an extra plus.
Could Cracker Barrel have reduced the size and downplayed the placement of the old guy in the overalls, sometimes called Uncle Herschel in a debunked story that he was related to the company’s founder? It probably would have been a good way to start the process of phasing him out…eventually. By the same token, it could have kept the rounded border of the nameplate instead of a more hard-edged version.
What about the décor of the typical Cracker Barrel? It’s not exactly my favorite but you have to admit there’s always something to look at no matter what direction you turn. Maybe eliminate some percentage of the paraphernalia? Maybe a room or two of the typical restaurant layout with a more modern décor theme? Same for the store section you walked through to get to the dining tables. A little less clutter would go a long way.
And the menu? All kinds of iconic restaurants have altered their food selections to reflect new tastes among customers. Again, it’s a process.
Whatever the particular execution points, it comes back to the original premise here. Cracker Barrel has to change or it gets trapped in an ever decreasing corner of the marketplace. It should get the chance to work on this transformation out of the spotlight and without the distractions of firing marketing agencies that were just giving them what they asked for and takeover outsiders who have very different agendas.
If Cracker Barrel doesn’t change it will not survive. Period. And if you’re not sure, ask Howard Johnson. Or Thom McAn. Or Sears Roebuck.
WarrensReport 