Cracker Barrel's Outdoor Ad Campaign

We are on the last leg of our cross-country trip to Princeton.  After our Smoky Mountain mini vacation, we spent part of a day visiting with good friends Margaret, Steve and little Ella in Kingsport, Tennessee.  We then drove on and spent a couple of nights in Pittsburgh visiting David’s brother, sister-in-law and kids.  What a relief to eat some great home cooked meals, to stretch our bodies with a little exercise and to catch up with friends and family.

Regarding the road food options in Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia….Of course, there are fast food chains like McDonald's.  Then there’s casual dining like Shoney’s and Cracker Barrel.  One can't travel along I-40 in Tennessee and not notice all the billboards for Cracker Barrel.  It seems as if every exit on both sides of the interstate have a sign.  Because Cracker Barrel is based in Tennessee, it is no surprise that the main artery through the state is saturated with ads for their many locations.  Actually the chain has locations throughout the US (but not on the West coast).

As a former advertising professor/agency account planner, I can’t help but spot both good and bad advertising campaigns. I am usually not impressed with outdoor advertising, but the Cracker Barrel campaign is notable because of both creative execution and media strategy.

This year, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America awarded Cracker Barrel’s long-term outdoor agency, Buntin Out-of-Home Media, the 2011 OBIE Hall of Fame Award (like the Oscar of outdoor advertising).  Oh, but that didn’t stop Cracker Barrel from moving their business away from their Nashville ad agency in July. Chicago based Euro RSCG will now be responsible for creative strategy. When sales are slow, both ad agencies (and research) are often the first to go.

I like how the ads effectively capture the essence of the brand (homespun comfort) using less than 6 words and just a simple bold image.  Here is a sample of the outdoor campaign. 

To get a sense of what it feels like to drive along I-40 in the eastern south-central part of the US,  slide this page up and down for a while so you get exposures to all the billboard ads many, many times.