Ep.034: Know Your Audience (Part 1)

What happens when a brand forgets who it is?

This is Part One of our two-part series on branding and rebranding. In this episode, we break down the Cracker Barrel rebrand and the costly lessons it offers for business owners. Cracker Barrel built its reputation on consistency, nostalgia, and Southern hospitality, but its dramatic shift left loyal customers feeling disconnected.

We unpack the difference between branding (who you are) and marketing (how you tell your story), and why confusing the two erodes trust. With Donald Miller’s principle, “If you confuse, you lose”, we highlight what went wrong and contrast it with Apple’s ability to evolve while staying true to its identity.

If you’re considering a rebrand, this episode explains why evolution beats revolution and how to adapt without losing the emotional connection your audience values most.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

all right, benji brady, welcome in. We are here for episode 34. We're in episode 8 of season 3. Throw numbers at you left and right love, love it.

Speaker 2 0:24

Good stuff, man. Three plus four, four does not equal eight, but that's okay. Who's?

Speaker 3 0:30

counting yeah, seven. Well, six, seven, Six seven.

Speaker 1 0:34

You both know how good I am with math, oh gosh.

Speaker 2 0:37

Adam hates six, seven.

Speaker 1 0:39

Sean, not to embarrass me before we started this, I better make a clip. It will have to. We'll see if it blows up for it. Well, I'm excited because today's episode is one that I put together for us. Come on.

Speaker 3 0:56

Good stuff.

Speaker 1 0:57

I know I'm excited. You guys normally bring the topics to the table as owners. You share that. And I sent something to you guys. I said, hey, can we do one about this? And it's going to be called uh know your audience. Okay, that was kind of my thought process behind it. Um, obviously, you know we're we might be a little bit behind it's. There's a lot more going on in the world since then, but we're going to talk a little bit about uh, cracker Barrel as a case study.

Speaker 1 1:21

Now, my whole point when I brought this to you guys was not really to crack down on them or criticize, but really to learn from the things that they've done. And most of you listening probably have seen it. I don't know how you've missed it. If you didn't, you were under a rock. Whether you're on social media or not, it was on the news, it was everywhere. It was on the news, it was everywhere. But Cracker Barrel recently made a major branding change Major, and not just their brand, like their logo, their look. They really changed everything. They changed their uniforms, they changed the inside of their stores, they changed their process, they changed I mean even to the rocking chairs out front.

Speaker 2 2:05

I mean they changed everything yeah, I'll take away the rocking chairs I know the best rocking chairs in the world, by the way, yeah look when hey, you know it was, it was the one time when you got you went out to eat.

Speaker 1 2:16

you're okay with like, hey, we got a 30 minute wait. You're like you know what? I'm good, I'm gonna go sit on the front porch play a little checkers. Oh, you're rocking chair. I'm good to go, so, but, um, so they made a change, they made a rebrand and I I kind of as me, as somebody, you know, I do branding um for you guys, I do branding myself. I'm a branding guy. I love it. Um, you know, I would like to say that I feel like rebranding sometimes is necessary. Yeah, it's something you have to we're.

Speaker 1 2:42

We went through it, um, and maybe I'm the issue, but, benji, when we were at CCW, we made some changes that need to be. We really updated our logo. We tried to figure out how do we honor the past while looking forward to the future. So that was a big thing. We updated those. We're actually going through that now at the church I'm at.

Understanding Cracker Barrel's Origins

Speaker 1 3:02

They haven't really ever had a big change and really have never had branding that fits the culture of who they are. Even ServPro, over the past couple of years, has seen some branding change and again, it's always faced with I don't want to say backlash, but people have trouble with change. Even when ServPro changed their branding and it was a very minimal change, but, yeah, minor I remember people like why are we doing this? And because it needs to be, and so what I want to do today is kind of dive into that. Potentially a two parter yeah, we talked about that before. I think this is becoming our MO. We're having a big pop.

Speaker 1 3:44

I think that was my fault, but you know what it's good? It's all good. It gives us time to really dive into these conversations. So I want to talk today a little bit about that branding and I want to share some things with you guys. I shared with you guys before a couple of the references that I talked about. One of my favorite books is by Donald Miller. It's called Building a Story Brand and it really for somebody in my position, even as a content creator, videographer, you know it teaches you how do you build a brand for your customer. And then I took some of the stuff that you guys love obviously James Clear with Atomic Habits and some Patrick Lencioni.

Speaker 3 4:21

Love me some, patrick.

Speaker 1 4:22

Just for you, brady. I appreciate it. So, but what I want to do is let's dive in a little bit. So I wanted to ask you guys, let's look at Cracker Barrel, let's dive into that. Um, you know, all of us we've eaten at Cracker Barrel, we love it, our listeners. Um, if you are listening from somewhere and you're like, what is a Cracker Barrel Like, if we don't have it, look, it's an old time country store and they have rocking chairs out front, they have a. They have a store inside that's got just trinket, candy, all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 2 4:52

I love the decade of uh of uh snacks. You know little, let's call them candies. They have from the different decades. Man, you can go get a box of those nostalgic candy. I'll say this, like you know, most people may not realize but Cracker Barrel was started in 1969 in Lebanon, tennessee, and, to your point, it was designed at the country store. Feel that it was. It was designed to be along major highways and or interstates for people that are traveling. That could see consistency. Hey, I want it. I need to go eat at Cracker Barrel right Breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever, um, but they serve. They really wanted to serve people. To have a gathering place for community, similar to modern day. The water cooler, think about. Everybody goes around the water cooler when it's hot and they get out a bottle of water or whatever. Uh, so that that's. It was Southern comfort food with a hospital, hospitable atmospheres.

Speaker 1 5:42

That was that was their original design of cracker barrel, which still lives today. Yeah it, well, it was. Instead of made the change a little bit, but yeah, so you're 100 right, it's consistent. You know they had out out back, remember they had places for your rvs. Yeah, you know, I mean literally parking spaces for rvs, for 18 wheelers. Um, I mean all kinds of things. You're right, benji. They really wanted to say you know, how do we? How do we make it so anybody can come here? And so it was a come hang out for a bit. Come hang out, have family time. Look, I remember having breakfast with my family there, eating there, or even evening. I mean, you can get breakfast anytime of the night I love some breakfast.

Speaker 3 6:23

Love some breakfast.

Speaker 1 6:23

That's my favorite meal of the day breakfast, oh yeah, before we jump into it, favorite thing to get at cracker barrel what do?

Speaker 2 6:29

you guys. Oh man, I'll tell you what it used to be. I don't that'll do it anymore because it's about 3 000 calories, but the country fried steak with gravy on top. That thing was about. I mean, that thing was huge, that was gonna be mine right there.

Speaker 3 6:44

Country front steak For me. I'm kind of torn, because if I'm going to Cracker Barrel, I like breakfast so much I'm going to get their pancakes.

Speaker 2 6:54

Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 6:54

I'm going to get the pancakes, but if for some reason I'm not in a breakfast mood, I'm going meatloaf. Oh okay, I love some meatloaf. That's my last meal. Now my wife makes some really going meatloaf. Oh okay, I love some meatloaf. That's my last meal. Now my wife makes some really good meatloaf. That will be my last meal.

Speaker 2 7:12

I will say today, Adam, it's chicken and dumplings for me at Cracker Barrel Fantastic chicken and dumplings.

The Rebrand Disaster

Speaker 1 7:17

I will say total side note nothing to do with this. Brady, if you love the pancakes and you don't want to go eat there, you can get a box from Walmart Tastes just like it, I kid you not. I kid you not, they sell Cracker Barrel Pancake. Oh, wow, it's right on point. But here's what I thought Our case study.

Speaker 1 7:35

I mentioned that I think branding needs to evolve, as me, as somebody that does it, I believe that I think things grow, things change. They need to get what we call a refreshed look right, like you need to have those. Everything has seen it. Think about it. Pepsi has done it, coke has done it, gatorade has done it, jordan brand has done it, nike has done it. Take all these most top 10 recognizable brands and they make these updates to their branding, they clean it up and they go good. Now they don't. I don't feel like they've ever changed who they are and change these, but they've made these evolving things.

Speaker 1 8:14

And I think, where Cracker Barrel went wrong and even our listeners now you as an owner, whether you own your own business, you own a franchise you have to think about that branding Like, look at Cracker Barrel. When they did this, I feel like they abandoned what they loved. They did that because you know, and I and I said this to you guys before when we were talking I personally didn't think the logo change looked bad. I thought it looked clean and I understand people were like, and you know, it took away the look and all this, but I felt like it looked clean. It was updated.

Branding vs. Marketing Explained

Speaker 1 8:45

Where I felt like they abandoned is they changed the inside. They changed the core of who they are, and one of the things that I read in Donald Miller's book the story branding is where do I fit into this story right, where does this and when you say that you ask that because that's what a customer asks where do they, as your customer, fit in to your story? That's something we've talked about, even with Servpro. Where do our customers fit into our branding? So, before we kind of dive in, I want you guys give me a little bit of what you feel like in that. Where do you feel like our branding unless you serve pro? Where do you feel like our branding is something that's important to our customers?

Speaker 3 9:30

Well, I mean, let's go back to what Benji talked about the inception of Cracker Barrel, and you talked about the change of the logo, Adam. Yeah, I mean, maybe the logo did look a little cleaner, right, but the main thing that they took off of it was Old Country Store off the new one. So you've got this audience of people that connecting to you know, uh, remembrance of an easier life or easier lifetime, you know, sit on the front porch no phone, rocking chair, no phones, drink a cup of coffee, have conversation, uh, play checker or checkers, Um, so, yeah, when that connecting to it, those are the people they connected to. So, for for us, you know, we, we, we serve people. I mean our, excuse me, we serve people on a day-to-day basis, helping them in a, in a time of of need. So if that ever changed, then that would be detrimental to who we are as an organization.

Speaker 2 10:35

Yeah, and I would add to that, I think, of the branding itself. Just, I'm not near as deep into it as you are, Adam, but if you, if you look at the old time, the way they used to do um story like cartoons, they started on one page and they had, you know, a man, and the next page had something added and a stick figure and whatever. And as you flip through that book I look at the brand and go okay, back in 19, you know 67, when ServPro started, the logo looked like this. But as we flipped through the book it really didn't. It really didn't evolve much different.

Speaker 2 11:09

Brady remembers the day when we had Sammy ServPro, the little wand, you know, magic is what they thought. It was the magic wand on the logo where they kind of evolved away from that. And then they got into this, what you mentioned earlier. They just they blew the letters up bigger, moved the restricted trademark symbol down low and they still fit in this category of we'll call it a housetop, but it represents a building now, not a housetop. So, to your point, it didn't really change, it just kind of evolved into something more modern.

Speaker 1 11:41

Yeah, and and and, honestly, branding isn't just. People hear branding and I think they think colors and logo, like they hear they were branding. And it's funny because, if you think about that, serpro is known for the green machine, right, like the green trucks, um, and then you guys correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the whole point, the whole reason that Serpro is the color green. Wasn't the Isakson the first car he had, wasn't he? He didn't have a Porsche or something that was green. No, it was a Beetlebug.

Speaker 2 12:09

Beetlebug that's what it was.

Speaker 3 12:13

Like the Herbie car back in the day. Uh, like Pantone colors, or I may not be saying the right terminology, but what was the most recognized or or or color that stood out the most, and it was the color of that vehicle.

Speaker 1 12:27

Yeah, and so that's why it. But now it's the significance of it. Like people see the green trucks and you know they they're, they're known for those types of things. But you know you're talking about emotional, especially in the business that we're in. You know branding really ties to that. Like ServPro has an emotional connection to a customer right. Like think about what customers deal with, and we say that a lot of these people, unless you're me, will deal with this once or twice in their life.

Speaker 2 12:58

Aren't you at four or five now?

Speaker 1 12:59

We're at four or five. Like I told you, guys, I was worried because we got guys coming today to fix the repair that we're finally almost done with. But you know there's an emotional connection to CERPRO with that, and so what I feel like there needs to be done on that, or learn from these things, is where does that come from, what does that do and how does that change your story? Um, because if you change too drastically, it'll it'll change that and it'll affect it.

Speaker 2 13:29

Yeah, and sometimes you know to your point if, if you don't, if you don't make that emotional connection, you got to keep that. I'll call it history, let's call it Um. You got to keep that sentimental value you know to your brand and and ultimately it'll, it'll continue to morph into better, bigger and better things.

Speaker 1 13:48

But yeah, basically, look, if your story isn't clear in shift to drastically, people are going to disagree, and I think it's going to end up hurting your brand in the long run. So, um, something, brady, I put in here that I want to talk about. We've talked a lot about this over the past few years, as we've really changed business development and marketing. It used to be under one umbrella, just marketing everything, and so one of the things that I looked at is I believe there's a difference between branding and marketing. For me, this is what I feel like.

If You Confuse, You Lose

Speaker 1 14:18

Branding is who you are, like, branding is who you are. Okay, branding is who you are your identity, your culture, your values. Marketing, though, that's how you tell your story, that's how you share who you are, and that could be how you communicate you, who you are, through your platforms, whether that's social media, linkedin, email to customers website. You know campaigns that you run through your platforms, whether that's social media, linkedin, email to customers website. You know campaigns that you run through your ads.

Speaker 1 14:43

This can have all these type of things in it, but here's the thing If you can have the best marketing in the world, your marketing can look great, it can be strong, it can be pretty, but if your brand, if your foundation is shaky, it's not going to have what you need. It's not going to have that foundation, because that branding is who you are. So you have your marketing that tells your story. But if you're branding, if they don't work together, they're falling apart. And that's one of the things I felt like with Cracker Barrel, where they were messing things up and with their customers, creating that disconnection and something that our listeners think through, like how are you connecting with your customers? Your social media can look great, your photos can look great, everything but if your brand doesn't share who you are, you're in trouble.

Speaker 2 15:27

I'll say this, Adam, that is spot on, because marketing you use the I love that you mentioned the word platform because you use the platform that you've been given. That's the marketing approach. Okay, but to your point, if the branding, if we have the best brand in our industry Servpro we know that it's the best brand in our industry, but we have to go market it, to use the platform that we've been given to support this massive, awesome brand, and then you add the team Wilson value to it. Man, it just speaks volume. So, use the platform. That's the marketing piece. Use the marketing piece to share your brand.

Speaker 1 16:07

You know, and Donald Miller says this in one of his, in his book the story of branding if you confuse, you lose. I like that. So think about it. If your customers are confused and we've seen this, we I mean take, for instance, we were. I like that. You know, just a not not a terrible review, but not a great review, but the you if you confuse your customer, then they're going to feel lost in your story, with who they are, and I feel like walking into Cracker Barrel. You're really confused. You're like what? What is this?

Speaker 3 16:51

Yeah Well maybe it goes to something do as an organization. Do we really know our customer?

Speaker 2 16:58

Yeah.

Speaker 3 16:58

You know, because if we really, because if we really knew our customer, then would we make the change. You know, because sometimes our customers come to us and they are begging for tweaking or changing or not even changing but like iteration, right, but if the customer is not saying hey, what you guys are doing, so like in Cracker Barrel's case, the customer didn't say I don't think, of course, I don't know, they didn't ask my opinion, they should ask somebody.

Speaker 3 17:30

They should ask somebody. But the customer didn't say hey, you guys have been doing this for 50 years and we don't like this anymore. Can you change it? Can you update it? We need a refresh. You know we need all this. I don't think the customer said that, but somebody. This is. I think this is a good leadership, uh, uh perspective. Somebody in leadership said we need to change that. And just because maybe it was you know, we've talked about this on the show before, but maybe it was some of that shiny object syndrome yeah I think it was just a change.

Speaker 2 18:01

I think it would have been really weird, honestly, that just I mean, think about this. We, we all. As we were younger, we went to cracker barrel with our parents, our grandparents or whatever. And then we got, we've gotten older and guess what we do? We take our kids to cracker barrel, so it can be a constant history thing. I think it would have been really weird to walk into a and again. It doesn't change my opinion on Cracker Barrel. I was at Cracker Barrel a week ago but I think it'd been really weird to go from that old country store you guys mentioned to that modern look. It looks like a hotel, yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 18:31

To me it looks like the inside of a hotel. I can see that the new look. And here's you're talking about. You're talking about somebody in leadership, brady, and so I think that's a great point.

Speaker 1 18:42

And I want to be, obviously, I want to be very careful with how I say this. I don't want anybody to take it the wrong way, but the individual, their chief of marketing, that they put in place, did not have a background in old country living. And I say that because, look, things that work in the South may not work in the North, and things that work in the North may not work in the South. Or take, for instance, what works on the West Coast doesn't work on the East Coast, and that's fine because there's culture identified with that brand. And I think that's something we've talked about, this even in our own marketing, that we're looking right now. Well, hey, like, for instance, we're looking at the digital side of things. Hey, marketing in Birmingham, everybody in Birmingham considers himself part of Birmingham. Yeah, I think you from the edge of our territory to the top of our territory. But you look at, like, our Texas markets, each city that we have in our territory is the size of Birmingham.

Speaker 2 19:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1 19:38

So they don't say hey, I'm from you know, they don't typically say hey, I'm from Dallas. They don't say I'm from Frisco or from Salina or from here. It's different mentalities and different cultures. Different places work differently. Yeah, got to be clear about it.

Speaker 2 19:53

I love that you got to be clear.

Apple's Successful Brand Evolution

Speaker 1 19:55

And here's an example. I know we're all Apple guys, benji, especially you, I know you're an Apple guy. Let's think about this. Here's a clear example that I wanted to put together about marketing and branding. Okay, apple, tomorrow they could change their marketing end over in a 180, completely different. But because of their branding and those things they're branded to be innovative, to be creative, to be, hey, we're the first ones to design this among anybody else. So, because they completely changed their marketing, their branding fits, because their branding says, hey, we're going to do this, we're going to do something that nobody else ever has done.

Speaker 1 20:36

I saw a video the other day how um tim cook was. They called him the blackberry killer because he talked about and he did a statement, true statement when the app, when the iphone first came out. He used this as an example, and not to be, but to make a point hey, when you buy a blackberry, you can't evolve, you can change. Those buttons are on your phone forever, like, there's no changing that. So how do we create a product that looks different and can be different? The iPhone is a screen. All we have to do is update software looks. I mean, look at it right now, at the time of right now. This past week they have released the new iOS 26. Yep, completely different.

Speaker 2 21:22

Oh, yeah, I'll tell you too, to your point. I love that you used Apple because, man, I remember when Steve Jobs got up and said hey, we're going to put this device in the palm of your hand. Oh, and, by the way, it's also an MP3 player, it's also a phone. It also can do your email. It also can do email. It also can do he was painting a picture for the future. And now, if you look at it, every year in the month of September they do a. They used to do it live in person. And then, obviously, when COVID hit in 2020, 2021, they started going to virtual. And, brady, I'm sure, like you, I watch it. I don't watch it live. And, brady, I'm sure, like you, I watch it. I don't watch it live, but I watch it the evening of just to see what happened. And that brand new what is it? The iPhone Air they have now is like it's so thin I don't know how they even put the computer chip in it. That thing is thin.

Speaker 3 22:11

So it's, it's Well and I mean I think too to the point with Apple as well is and Adam, I don't know if you've thought about this, but Apple has the capability of making some tweaks, making some changes, even making some larger changes, because they have so much their audience, their followers, their consumers have so much trust in the brand, in the organization, that if they make a change, they're like you know what their customer might say. I'm willing to give that a shot because I trust them. You know, as opposed to Cracker Barrel and I don't know, I'm just speculating, but you know it's a difference in saying, hey, we're going to go from crispy pancakes to major crispy pancakes or add some pecans in there, as opposed to let's just change up the whole stuff.

Episode Closing and Preview

Speaker 2 23:08

Yeah, you know too Cracker Barrel. As Adam said, they tried to communicate a new story without grounding it in their core brand. Well, listeners, we just want to tell you thank you so much for tuning in today. We're going to do a part two on this because now that you've heard the backstory of Cracker Barrel, we want to help walk you through how you can know your audience. So stay tuned for next episode. You can find us on any social platform. At HigherUpPodcast, you can subscribe at HigherUpPodcastcom. Choose your favorite platform, whether it's Apple yes, that's the way to go or Spotify, or YouTube, or whatever you'd like. Appreciate you guys all tuning in. As always, choose to live a higher up life. We'll see you next time.