Cracker Barrel vs. Jaguar - when a rebrand sticks and when it snaps

When you write a book called Rebrand Right, you can guess which brands you get asked most about. Jaguar for the first half of 2025 and now - Cracker Barrel.  So what’s the difference? Why did Jaguar stay the course while Cracker Barrel reversed?

Cracker Barrel rebrand: why the logo change backfired (and Jaguar didn’t)

If you’re here for the Cracker Barrel rebrand, here’s the short version: the restaurant’s logo change triggered a fast, emotional backlash, and the company reversed course to protect what guests love most -comfort, nostalgia, and familiar cues. 

This article breaks down why the Cracker Barrel rebrand sparked such heat, how a poor launch amplified the reaction, and how a tighter diagnosis could have helped them make the changes that were needed, while keeping the soul of the brand intact. I contrast it with Jaguar: a true business-model shift into ultra-luxury EVs where bold identity change matched a bold strategy. Same word - “rebrand.” Very different jobs to be done.

Getting each rebrand right required different approaches, but both started in the same place.

Rebrand start with the business problem, not the logo  

The first place you have to start is not the logo.  It’s the business problem that prompted the change. In Jaguar’s case their business strategy was shifting dramatically– into an adjacent category—ultra-luxury electric vehicles—with a different price point, buyer, and offer. 

When your economic model isn’t working and the brand is no longer relevant to buyers, you can’t just tinker – you have to reinvent. As the CEO said: “We had to do something that would enable us to cut through and make the brand more relevant and desirable again. When we started on this journey to reinvent Jaguar, we said we had to be disruptive, brave and fearless and change people's perceptions of what the brand stands for.” 

Cracker Barrel’s tighter rope  

Cracker Barrel’s picture was different. Not as dramatic - but not positive either. Revenue was essentially flat. In 2024, the company reported revenue of roughly $3.5 billion, up less than 1% from $3.4 billion the previous year, while net income fell to $40.9 million, down from $99 million in 2023.   Tariffs and a tough mid-price dining market didn’t help.   

“It’s a tough time to be a slightly-more-expensive-than-McDonald’s kind of restaurant. This is not a Cracker Barrel thing. It’s a thing generally. Olive Garden is having trouble. Red Lobster is having trouble…” Bruce Clark, School of Business, Northeastern 

But according to CEO Julie Felss Masino (previously of Taco Bell, who took the role at Cracker Barrel in August 2023) the business challenges were also due to a decline in relevance. On a May 2024 conference call,  she said the company "has lost some of its shine" and needs a "transformation" to continue to appeal to its current customer base and attract new guests.  

Here’s the grey area: increasing “relevance” is a spectrum, from gentle tune-ups to radical change. Jaguar needed the latter. Cracker Barrel needed nuance.

And to be fair, they were already making sensible moves without ruffling feathers: menu and pricing updates, brighter stores, better working environments—all while preserving distinctive brand assets within the experience: fireplaces, rocking chairs, vintage décor, peg games etc. As Masino said on Good Morning America, “the soul is not changing.” Early results suggested they were heading the right way, restaurant owners were clamouring for their refits to happen and employees preferred the new working environments. 

Where the wheels came off 

There’s an argument that the biggest mistake they made was the communication around the identity change. Michael Wintrob puts this well: 

“To me, the takeaway isn’t about barrels, taste, or woke-ness; It’s about the launch playbook. If you don’t frame the story, the story frames you (and your brand). In 2025, rebrands aren’t file drops — more and more they’re cultural cat nip. Treat them with the same strategic rigor as a major product launch.”    

Cracker Barrel didn’t fully control the narrative. They could have showcased what was staying as clearly as what was changing. Keeping Uncle Herschel (the man in the old logo, also referred to as the "Old Timer") visible in identity elements and talking about him at launch, not after. He wasn't prominent in the new identity elements. If he’s still on menus and in-store, make that clear. Don’t make customers go hunting. Sure, he's no Colonel Sanders - but characters can be powerful brand assets and it's wise to nurture them.  In the flow of events (see below) he made his entrance too late.  

But perhaps the only mistake they really made was changing the logo on premise – signs and menus. But it was a big one since it signalled too much of a shift in people’s minds. The signal was that they were walking too far away from what people loved about the brand - the comfort and nostalgia.  

You can see the rational argument for the logo change – it’s just a refresh to modernise the brand to attract new customers. It builds on heritage elements - retaining the palette, barrel shape and font. This would be an easy argument to put forth to a senior management team in a board room. And it improves the legibility of the logo in small spaces – packaging, smartphone apps etc.  

Branding industry spokespeople like Allan Peters, who was interviewed on CNN stated, "I think strategically they did everything right. From their perspective, their audience is getting older. They're in their 70's and 80's and [Cracker Barrel is] trying to attract a younger audience." 

But brands aren’t just about the rational. They tap into emotions - like nostalgia and comfort - two associations that Cracker Barrel and their customers talk a lot about. And it’s discomforting to people when symbols that trigger these associations change. We’ve seen this before with brands like Gap, Tropicana and Twitter/X. 

Layer on what psychology shows: in times of uncertainty, nostalgia acts like an emotional anchor. As psychologist and nostalgia expert Krystine Batcho notes,

“It's comforting to have a nostalgic feeling for the past that reminds us that although we don't know what the future is going to bring, what we do know is that we know who we have been and who we really are” and it "revives memories of being accepted and loved."

That may be why this Cracker Barrel logo change has erupted into something bigger—it feels like someone tugged at the anchor. 

Could Cracker Barrel have ridden it out like Jaguar? 

Maybe. With a better launch plan and without Trump’s voice in the mix perhaps.  And almost certainly if there had been no logo change, since other changes were already being rolled out. 

Whether the CEO or CMO will ride this out remains to be seen. Behind closed doors there will be a lot of conversation.  I always feel for the marketers and CEO in these situations. The business was struggling. Relevance was an issue.  Change was needed. We don’t know the research that went into the change. Such an extreme backlash suggests that their brand diagnosis was just not rigorous enough (if you want to figure yours out, there’s a detailed guide in chapter 2 of Rebrand Right).  It suggests in particular that they didn’t pay enough attention to their distictive brand asset research, and didn’t test the new logo enough.  It's interesting to note that the design work was done by an internal team. It's common for people within an organisation to get bored with an identity WAY before consumers do. As we say in Rebrand Right, 

When there's no diagnosis, no depth of understanding of the equity within the current associations and assets or of the problem you need to solve, the brand identity is often the first casualty.
Rebrand Right - how to refresh your brand and marketing to grow your business, page 9

And maybe there will be a silver lining. Perhaps this will give them an upturn in sales eventually. Sure, it was a very expensive mistake to make. But reversing the logo decision, in service of comfort and nostalgia, may remind people what Cracker Barrel represents—and draw them back. 

As with any rebrand - only time will tell.

Cracker Barrel's reverse rebrand: how events unfolded 

August 21, 2025 New logo is launched alongside new fall menu and campaign "All The More"

"Cracker Barrel has been a destination for comfort and community for more than half a century, and this fifth evolution of the brand’s logo, which works across digital platforms as well as billboards and roadside signs, is a call-back to the original and rooted even more in the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all back in 1969," the company said.

Company stock dips by nearly $10 in one day. But does rebound. Suggesting they could have stayed their course.

 August 22, 2025

Consumer backlash escalates.

August 25, 2025

Cracker Barrel issues statement addressing logo backlash but still stayed the course.

"If the last few days have shown us anything, it's how deeply people care about Cracker Barrel. We're truly grateful for your heartfelt voices," the company said. "You've also shown us that we could've done a better job sharing who we are and who we'll always be."

They also acknowledged Uncle Herschel, the uncle of Cracker Barrel founder Dan Evins, in the statement, saying the iconic man that had disappeared from the logo will still appear on menus, road signs and in the country store.  This was all a bit too little too late.

August 26, 2025: Trump weighs in - saying Cracker Barrel 'should go back to the old logo'

I mean – a marketer’s nightmare when a president starts commenting on your logo change… And then the White House starts messing with your logo... yikes.

Hours after Trump's post, Cracker Barrel folded. Their social media statement said:

"We thank our guests for sharing your voices and love for Cracker Barrel. We said we would listen, and we have. Our new logo is going away and our 'Old Timer' will remain."

Logo assigned to the rebrand annals of history. 

Want more rebrand stories? Get onto my free weekly newsletter, Brand Strategy Smarter.