Cracker Barrel's Long National Nightmare Is Over But Ours Continues
Silliness reigns supreme.
Cracker Barrel announced on Tuesday that it’s keeping its original logo. This should satisfy the people whose lives are so empty the Cracker Barrel logo actually matters to them. The chain is known for its “farmhouse aesthetic,” which seems like a misplaced priority considering it’s not a furniture store. It’s like if Crate & Barrel were known for its fresh ceviche.
Just last week, Cracker Barrel revealed that its logo was receiving a face lift — the old man leaning against a barrel was gone, along with the tagline “Old Country Store.” The restaurant’s menu was recently updated, as well, but more people complained about the new, modern logo because I don’t think they actually eat there. Donald Trump even whined on social media, “Make Cracker Barrel a WINNER again.”
The redesign definitely lacks the charm and specificity of the original. The new logo doesn’t really convey what type of restaurant Cracker Barrel is unless you assume the name is an ethnic slur (it’s not). I can appreciate complaints about misguided logo changes, but the right-wing backlash to Cracker Barrel’s new logo was absolutely deranged. There is nothing “woke” about the new logo. They didn’t replace the “Old Timer” with a drag queen.
Nonetheless, Cracker Barrel quickly relented. The company told USA Today: “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.”
This entire incident depresses me, and I was close to losing all faith in humanity until I realized people have been this stupid before in my lifetime. No, I don’t mean the “sexy” M&Ms debacle. I’m referring to the New Coke launch in 1985.
By the mid-1980s, Coca-Cola was losing serious ground in the cola wars. Its market share had dropped from 60 percent after World War II to just 24 percent in 1983. Pepsi had started to outsell Coke in supermarkets, and blind taste tests — popularly known as the Pepsi Challenge — consistently showed that consumers preferred Pepsi’s sweeter taste. Coke ran a lot of desperate ads with sex predator spokesman Bill Cosby disputing those results. Diet soft drinks posed a serious threat to Coke, as middle-aged baby boomers preferred the risk of brain cancer to an expanding waistline. The only places that Coke still thrived was where it had cornered the market (vending machines and restaurant deals).
So, Coca-Cola commissioned a secret project to create a new flavor for Coke. This was a reasonable response to its eroding market position, but the narrative has since developed that Coke was riding high and foolishly changed its formula, playing with the faith of millions of cola drinkers. Yet, as Tim Murphy at Mother Jones wrote, “[Coca-Cola] didn’t just wake up one day and decide to change the formula. They obsessed over every detail, in mortal fear of failure, until everything was in order.”
Even Coca-Cola’s own website labels New Coke “the most memorable marketing blunder ever?” However, there was a pretty impressive marketing push for New Coke. (Here’s a New Coke ad featuring New Edition.)
The company had spent years testing the new formula and it had consistently beaten the original Coke nationwide. Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta said Coke’s new flavor was “bolder,” “rounder,” and “more harmonious.” Basically, it was sweeter, but I suppose Goizueta couldn’t just say that because Coke’s rapist spokesman had previously gloated that Coke wasn’t as sweet as Pepsi and other colas: “Less sweet means more thirst-quenching, more refreshing, more real cola taste, better with food, better when I’m really hot …” My family agreed with him (about the soda).
New Coke was introduced on April 23 1985 and originally sold well. However, Coca-Cola had not counted on a nostalgia-based backlash, what Murphy aptly called “a revolt against the idea of change.”
And it wasn’t strictly generational: Murphy mentioned a Wausau Daily Herald article where a man named Andy Gribble told the Wisconsin paper, “So much of my life is changing outside of my control. Now Coke, the one thing left from my childhood, has been changed.” Gribble was a curmudgeonly 19.
Murphy had more examples that are somehow real:
In San Antonio, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (and the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times) found a man named Dan Lauck who brought his own coolers full of soda with him to restaurants and drank five cases of old Coke a week—6.5-ounce glass bottles only, never cans. Lauck called New Coke’s debut “the blackest day of my life.”
“From now on my life will be divided into B.C. and A.C.—before the change in Coke and after the change,” he told the AJC. “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.”
In Seattle, a real estate speculator named Gay Mullins formed a group called Old Cola Drinkers of America and set up a hotline where people could call to voice their complaints.
“They have taken away my freedom of choice,” he told People. “It’s un-American!”
These people were clearly insane, but a sad man setting up Coca-Cola group therapy sessions was considered more newsworthy than millions of normal people drinking New Coke without complaint.
Coca-Cola and Cracker Barrel sold a form of comforting nostalgia, which people have trouble surrendering. There was also a larger culture war at play in the cola war: Coca-Cola is an Atlanta-based company, but New Coke was officially launched at in New York City’s Lincoln Center. The people in charge of marketing are also seen as “big city” types who don’t really “get” everyday Americans.
Pepsi played off the New Coke backlash with an ad where old-school Coke fans complain that their favorite beverage was changed without “asking” them. The men then switch to Pepsi, the choice of a “new generation,” which now included these old country dudes. They were probably Cracker Barrel regulars.
New Coke lasted until July 11, 1985 when Coca-Cola announced the return of its original formula. ABC News’ Peter Jennings interrupted that afternoon’s installment of General Hospital with a special bulletin. (I was very upset, as I’d just begun a serious relationship with Anna Devane.)
Bill Cosby ended his relationship with Coca-Cola because he claimed his ads promoting New Coke’s superiority had hurt his credibility. (I personally am more forgiving of a fickle commercial pitchman than someone who drugs and rapes women.)
The newly branded Coca-Cola Classic was soon outselling Pepsi two to one, which led to a popular myth that “New Coke” was just a marketing stunt designed to boost consumer sentiment for the original Coke. People have argued on social media that Cracker Barrel was in cahoots with Trump all along, and the company’s new logo was a giant PR stunt and political operation intended to give MAGA a prominent cultural win.
This would’ve been a ridiculously circuitous plan, but for all their love of nostalgic tradition, Americans often reject simple explanations.
Imagine a boot smashing on your face for eternity. That's our future with these constant nonsensical culture wars. And the "best" thing is that sometimes they can be used as a vehicle to torment vulnerable minorities (as this is the will of the unreconstructed).
Of course a major component of these culture wars is a rightwing media human centipede, that's funded by millionaire and billionaire pocket change. So no matter what stupid package of outrage is constructed, there's influencers to spread it, rightwing propaganda networks to discuss it and spread it further, and then finally legitimization via the so-called MSM.
Cracker Barrel's ONLY faux-folksy value is the fact they still serve country ham.