In Branding, Relationships Are More Important Than Reactions 

As you may have heard, restaurant chain Cracker Barrel recently joined the likes of Jaguar and Gap by launching a rebrand that set off a firestorm of mostly negative reactions. Worse, within a matter of days, Cracker Barrel was forced to rescind its rebrand and revert back to its old primary logo design after the launch of its new brand identity led to its stock price cratering badly. Battered by the deluge of bad press and tumbling value, Cracker Barrel issued a statement that it was restoring the “old timer” figure to its logo. 

As an observer of people and culture, and a brand practitioner, it is interesting to me to observe the response to rebrands of well-known and well-established brands. In what I feel is a product of the internet age, where almost everyone has the means and ability to to chime in quickly with opinions about these high-profile rebrands, these moments quickly become hot-button topics and cultural flashpoints. When social-political considerations are included, as was likely the case with Cracker Barrel, these dialogues take on an even more ridiculous tone and tenor.

Many conversations around rebranding have gotten out of hand. I appreciate that we live in a time where everyone can see brands as they evolve and respond to refreshes and rebrands. With the ability to weigh in with opinions that inform how the market at large is responding to a brand shift, there ends up being a lot of noise around these high-profile brand updates that ultimately hinders, and does not help the larger conversation around branding. All of this is having a net negative impact on brands and consumers.

In the internet-fueled hype around poorly-received rebranding initiatives like Cracker Barrel, there is something missing from most conversations. It underscores what most people do and don’t understand about branding and it reflects something greater that is missing in our modern conversation around brands. It also highlights the key principle that brands would be wise to not overlook or undersell the next time they want to rebrand. 

Brand Conversation Should Focus on Relationships, Not Reactions

When rebranding, brands should focus more on relationships, rather than reactions, which can drive so much of how a rebrand initiative is perceived. The backlash to the failed Cracker Barrel rebrand reveals as much about the marketplace as it does about the brand, and it reflects more than just bad design, but more importantly, a damaged relationship between the brand and its core audience. 

I was personally not a big fan of the Cracker Barrel brand refresh, and I believe, in this case, it made sense to return to the drawing board from a design standpoint. Despite that, there were some aspects of the wider design system that I did like and believe should still be reflected in the wider brand extension. That said, what I hope to express here is is not so much a design critique, but rather a call to action– a plea, if you will, for brands and people who build and care about them, to focus on and filter conversations around future brand refreshes around things that matter more than just initial public response to a rebrand.

There is an opportunity for real conversation that is missed and lost when brand conversations devolve into hype and hot takes. It’s like judging someone’s beauty and worth based only off of seeing them one time. We would say that is shallow and misguided, but we do the same thing with brands. This is unfortunate and fails to elevate the true purpose of brands. We have a saying, branding is not only about creating marks, it’s about creating meaning. 

When brands change their identities in ways that disrupt or dismiss the relationships they have with their most ardent and loyal supporters, it’s going to cause problems. What annoys some will alienate those who most closely identify with the brand.

Why the Current Approach is the Wrong Approach

We’ve reached a point where rebrands don’t get evaluated as branding anymore. They’re judged as cultural flashpoints, opportunities for hot takes, and traffic-drivers for creators, thought leaders and commentators who have little connection to the brand beyond awareness. The quality and effectiveness of the work itself—what it means strategically, how it fits into the company’s trajectory—gets buried under a pile of instant reaction. And that’s a problem. Because if every rebrand is flattened into a one-day spectacle, we lose the ability to seriously assess what branding is supposed to do: clarify, modernize, and strengthen the story an organization is telling. Your brand (beyond the logo) is first and foremost, a strategic tool to create awareness, clarity, alignment, connection, and most importantly, trust.

There are other reasons why the hot take/hype train landscape that brand launches exist in currently is having a negative impact on brands and those who use them.

I’ve often used the expression that a rebrand is “not a change of sign, but a sign of change”. When brand launches are forced into this opinion-driven environment, focused around reactions and not relationships, it is a wrong way of viewing things because:

• Brands are created to be lived with, not just looked at. This approach skews perception before the brand has time to “live” in the world. It’s a gut reaction, which is fine and can even be insightful, but it takes more than that to truly appreciate meaning.
• This marketplace creates a chilling effect for companies trying to modernize and signal meaningful change. Brands are likelier to stay stuck in sameness because they don’t want to be the next Jaguar or Cracker Barrel.
• It trivializes and belittles the work of brilliant strategists and creatives who work on these projects. It makes us all a little less-informed.
• Similarly, it can make CEOs and brand leaders afraid to cast a bold vision, as they focus mainly on the reaction market and play it safe, emphasizing protection of the brand from critique rather than projection of a visionary identity, presence, and positioning.
• Because of the volume and visibility of reactions, it wrongly makes everyone the intended target of the rebranding, and that is never really the case. The message gets drowned out by those who need to hear and receive it most. 

Branding is Relationship Work. This is paramount to remember. Branding is long-term work that involves shifting position, perception, and relationship over time. The constant content cycle that drives much of this conversation moves swiftly and continually, too fast to be an adequate gauge of brand effectiveness. Within 48 hours of the Cracker Barrel rebrand and reversal, we were on to the next controversy and talking point. Their precipitous drop in stock price required drastic action, revealing a devastating disconnect between decisionmakers and the brand’s loyal customers and advocates. This all underscores a truth: Branding is about transformation, not trends. It’s about the long-term, substantive work of creating an identity and meaning, not just a moment. 

A Better Way Forward 

How can we drive and create a better environment for branding and understanding? What happens today is similar to when someone sees a trailer and decides they hate a movie. I understand that everyone will have an opinion and is free to share that in whatever channels they have available to them. What I do advocate for is more general branding awareness and understanding that leads to better branding discourse that sees brands in a more holistic way and values meaning over marks. 

Rebrands are expensive, time consuming endeavors that are mult-million dollar investments. When they fail, brands stand to lose more than money. They are not done lightly, but they can be done wrongly. I believe brand experts and marketers must lead the way in these conversations. Here are a few ideas to help facilitate better brand discussions: 

• When a rebrand is launched, ask “does the brand identity treatment now communicate who and what the brand is more clearly? Does it align better with values and audiences?” 
• Take a beat before reacting—acknowledge your visceral reaction, but thoughtfully judge a rebrand in-market, not in mockup form. Understand how the logo fits within the entire brand system. The logo is a small part of the overall communication of the brand.
• Recognize that even though smart, talented people are involved, mistakes can be made in the process. When you have millions to spend, your mistakes become million-dollar mistakes.
• Designers, strategists, and marketers must lead the conversations that explain strategy, not just surface visuals. 
• When you have questions about branding decisions, engage with brand decision makers and creative teams directly to understand some of the decisions that are made.

Conclusion

Our world is very content-driven. To appreciate and assess brands properly we must look at brands first and foremost as business tools, not just content. A rebrand rises or falls on whether or not it creates better position and perception for the entity it reflects, not just whether the public likes it or not. The question isn’t whether we like the new logo on launch day—it’s whether the brand can tell a clearer, more resonant story six or twelve months from now. To use a sports analogy, brands must be measured by how they perform in the arena, not just how they look coming out of the locker room.

Debates about the design of brands can and should take place, however, what brands are and what brands do must be reframed, so that elevated conversations about the meaning they create can take place. Relationships, namely, the ones between brands and the people that engage and choose them, need to be front and center when brand decisions are made and shared. Reactions make content. Relationships make brands. Instead of hoopla, hype, and hot takes, let’s all prioritize people if we truly want to make better brands and have more insightful and impactful branding conversations.

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Enthuse Creative is a strategic branding and creative studio that guides businesses through rebranding and trains leaders to have powerful, positive brand conversations. Contact us today to learn how we can help your organization.