This was a story that was making waves everywhere originally as apparently the company Cracker Barrel decided to do some branding changes with their logo which involved taking out a drawing of an old man sitting next to a barrel. It basically just became a plain logo of sort where it was primarily the name of the company. The reason why this generated backlash it seems is it made people think how a lot of executives in recent times have been actively trying to take away references of their culture in order to appeal to another demographic. That didn’t sit well as the company’s stock tumbled dramatically and a lot of people stopped going to the restaurants.
The first example that many people brought up was the company Bud Light who decided to use a male that identified as a female to be in their ads where it seemed like the executive doubled down on that choices where they fundamentally insulted a large part of their customer base. That didn’t turn out so well either. So with this change there are a lot of people who now think the company may have a chance to redeem themselves.
In my opinion, these are examples on how people get way too comfortable when they are placed in these fortunate positions and thinking they will always have say a certain income source. Like most relationships in life, you have to put effort to maintain it and customers are no different. The obvious thing would be instead of focusing on these branding experiments and all maybe it’s better to focus on the food and service as the key way to grow first and foremost with your loyal customer base. Sounds so simple yet it seems so difficult for many. Will people forgive them? Who knows, but at this point they will probably have to spend way more for the PR nightmare.