Poor old Cracker Barrel. Just when it looked like Jaguar's disastrous rebrand from last year might be the most divisive of the decade, along came the American restaurant chain with another supposedly 'woke' new look. Only this time, the response was so bad that the company actually reversed course.
Not to re-tread old ground, but for the uninitiated, the new (and now shelved) Cracker Barrel logo did away with the illustration of a man known as "Uncle Herschel," or the "Old Timer". Which left a lot of very online people feeling very unhappy. Cue countless accusations of wokery.
But now, Cracker Barrel's CEO has revealed the very specific reason why the rebrand was deemed to be necessary in the first place – and it had nothing to do with ideology.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Cracker Barrel CEO Julie Felss Masino appeared at an investing conference this week, where she spoke about the rebrand. And it turns out the new logo was all about "highway visibility". In other words, the new logo was designed to be easier to read on billboards.
"Part of this transformation is setting up success for the long term," Masino said during the 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit in New York City.
Alas, the new logo won't be appearing on our roundups of either the best billboards or best logos any time soon – because the company caved to the online noise and shelved it. (Which, for what it's worth, I don't think it should have done.)
