The WORST Rebrands of All Time (Sorry, Cracker Barrel)

So with all the talk about Cracker Barrel this week, I’m going to give you three even worse examples of when brands broke the #1 cardinal rule of marketing and business: understand, and listen to, your audience. 

#1: Netflix

This might be the greatest example ever of “shipping your org chart”. In 2011, Netflix tried to split their DVD rental business into a separate company (Qwikster) while keeping streaming under Netflix.

Why? Their CEO was quoted as saying because they are different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

To which customers said, that sounds like a “you” problem. We don’t want to juggle two subscriptions, two websites, and two logins for the same service. Their stock tanked nearly 75% that year.

Netflix scrapped Qwikster after less than a month, owned up to the mistake, and doubled down on streaming. The rebrand became a case study in the fact that your audience does not care about your corporate org chart

#2 Olive Garden

In this example of “customers love us for this, let’s take it away”, we come to Olive Garden. In 2014, the company’s investors pressured Olive Garden to cut costs and rebrand as “authentic Italian” food. As a result, they released a 290 page document basically burning the business to the ground, and one of the major sticking points was breadsticks. With the suggestion to actually scrap one of the brand’s most iconic offerings: unlimited breadsticks.

And as you can imagine, fans freaked out. Breadsticks were basically the only thing holding Olive Garden’s brand together. It signified generosity, indulgence, and comfort. 

But, Investors forgot that the key to making their money back, and then some, is to delight customers, not absolutely piss them off by taking away their favorite thing.

As you can imagine, after public uproar, Olive Garden had to quickly put out a statement saying they were not removing unlimited breadsticks. And kindly reminded the investors that we’re going to need to think of smarter ways to cut costs than to undercut our audience’s love for our brand.

# 3. London 2012 Olympics Logo 

And lastly, on to one of the more iconic global brands, the Olympics. In 2012, the organizers apparently took mushrooms and said to themselves..you know what, we’ve been building up up brand equity since 776 BC, so let’s just throw it all way. 

Yep, they decided they wanted a bold, edgy, modern logo that captured “dynamic energy” and broke from traditional Olympic designs.

And, they ended up with this. And you can imagine, they got clowned. It was met with universal mockery. Literally, universal - this is the olympics after all. The whole world hated it. People said it looked like jagged puzzle pieces, graffiti gone wrong, or Lisa Simpson doing something R-rated. Which, ok, interesting imagination guys...

In essence, the Olympics forgot they aren’t the X-Games. They’re the Olympics. You are maybe the greatest representation of tradition in world culture, and that’s why people love you. 

And well, we never saw them stray the path again.

Conclusion

While Cracker Barrel may have royally f***ed up, it pales in-comparison to these brand blunders.

So just remember: it can always be worse.