Cracker Barrel:
Roadside Wellness

OBJECTIVE: Increase Cracker Barrel’s dwindling number of customers under 50 without alienating their older customers.

PROBLEM: CB’s messaging is so focused on the functionality of Cracker Barrel that they’ve let people forget about the spirituality of the old country store.

INSIGHT: Getting away for a delightful meal with people we love is the original wellness retreat.

STRATEGY: Cracker Barrel is a reminder of what genuine wellness looks like.

Putting the where and how much before the why

Cracker Barrel’s slipping stock price isn’t about the culture wars (see Chick-Fil-A). It’s not that we want to stay in our cars (see Waffle House). It’s not that people want healthier food (see both). It’s that advertising has been almost exclusively focused on location and price.

There’s nothing wrong with functional ads, but we have to connect back to the ‘why’—and right now only Cracker Barrel loyalists undertand what makes it so special.

the wellness retreat to unite us all

As our team was driving away from a field trip to Cracker Barrel, Taylor Martin, our art director, said, “Don’t you feel better? Like peaceful, you know?” As funny as it sounds, we felt like we’d gone on a little wellness retreat.

We wondered if wellness could alienate CB loyalists, but wellness culture has spread far beyond coastal elites. Fox News has published scores of articles over the years about the benefits of mindfulness and self-care. The wellness nut is such a well-worn trope in pop culture (e.g., Phoebe Buffat, Chris Traeger) that we’re all on in the joke/jargon. Any loyalists who were going to see wellness as the devil’s work already walked out on the brand because of CB’s Pride stance.

Playfully presenting Cracker Barrel as a wellness brand might be the last thing that all Americans can agree on.

the spirituality of simple, thoughtful hospitality

Wellness isn’t supposed to be perpetual self-improvement or a red herring for ‘diet.’ Wellness is finding moments of peace and wonder, no matter where you are, preferably with food/people you love.

Stepping onto Cracker Barrel’s porch is like stepping through a Torii gate: you’re leaving the the mundane world and entering the spiritual world. The country store invites guests to wander around, making us feel like we belong in the space. The rocking chairs, the checkers, the peg solitaire all transform waiting into quality time, into meditation. Nowhere else elevates a roadside meal to a place of spiritual practice.

That’s all waaay too earnest for our audience, so we’ll tell the truth another way: by leaning into the fun of Cracker Barrel talking like a wellness brand.

This is the slightly deranged “stratifesto” we used for briefing. (Later we pivoted away from making the idea of slowing down so central; CB can be very speedy and no restaurant wants to be seen as slow.)

Execution: where and how
would Cracker Barrel show up as a wellness brand?

STUNT: We’d kick off the campaign with a stunt launching a new wellness center in Los Angeles. Surprise! It’s LA’s very first Cracker Barrel location.

WELLNESS MEDIA PLACEMENT: We’d have outlets like wellness podcasts do ad reads presenting Cracker Barrel as if it was a wellness retreat. (I made this ad with AI and Final Cut using Emery’s copy.)

OOH: CB is famous for its thousands of "turn soon" billboards, but has no brand-building OOH. We'd like to place these billboards on outbound highways in major markets, like Atlanta, to get travelers thinking about taking a little wellness retreat in 100 miles.

SOCIAL: Nobody needs genuine wellness like a doom scroller, and the wellness industry has a never-ending supply of material for CB to put its country-fried wellness spin on.

HOTEL iTVS: We’ll soothe weary travelers staying at hotels near CBs with our Cracker-Barrel-inspired ASMR.

ROADSIDE WELLNESS PRODUCT LINE: Once you’ve bought into Roadside Wellness culture, you’re going to need to take it with you in the form of products like unsweet-tea-anxiety-relief simple syrup and barrel-printed yoga mats.

CB has a section of higher-end products (pictured) that this line could slot right into.

come on down to the country-fried wellness retreat

By getting people to see Cracker Barrel not as an outmoded diner but as a country-fried wellness retreat, we connect to a deeper truth about Cracker Barrel in a way that younger audiences can hear.

I shared this campaign with Cracker Barrel loyalists (including buttonholing my plumber for feedback). As research suggested, folks thought it was funny without being at their expense, and spoke to something real about CB: “It does feel a little like church.”