Major Brands Redesign Logos and Risk Losing Loyal Customers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skHH3IJ7B-Q

By Sabrina Pineda

Life News Today reporter

When companies redesign a beloved brand, they are making a wager about recognition. They are betting that shoppers will still identify a product instantly after its most familiar cues change. In crowded categories where decisions happen quickly, that wager carries consequences because redesigns succeed or fail at the moment of choice. Industry data suggests the odds can be harsh. Designalytics, which evaluates packaging effectiveness, has reported that more than 50% of package redesigns fail to increase purchase preference compared with the designs they replace. The result highlights a stubborn risk of visual change. A redesign can modernize a brand while weakening signals that previously made the product an easy selection.

The risk also shows up in how consumers respond to disruption of habit. “When you rebrand, the [consumer’s] subconscious is saying ‘whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where’s that thing we were comfortable with?’” said Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, in a Harvard Business Review podcast discussion about rebranding.

Cracker Barrel offered a recent example of how quickly a redesign can collide with customer expectations. The company attempted to modernize and simplify its nostalgic logo, drew backlash, and reversed course after saying its old logo would remain. CEO Julie Felss Masino framed the company’s broader turnaround in blunt terms, telling investors, “We are not leading in any area. We will change that.” Customers still resisted the logo change. “I don’t like the changes. I mean it’s always been Cracker Barrel like it is, so I’d like for it to stay like it is,” customer Sid Leist said during a visit to a Cracker Barrel in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The logo features an overall-clad man, described as representing Uncle Herschel, leaning on a barrel with the words “Old Country Store” underneath.

Brand consultants often focus less on the artwork than on how change is introduced. Richard Wilke, a former executive at the brand consultancy Lippincott, said, “The logo change was almost a natural conclusion to this multi-year transformation.” His point centered on sequencing and context, and whether a redesign reads as the logical outcome of a broader plan rather than a standalone decision released without enough explanation.

Jaguar’s rebrand showed a different risk, driven less by nostalgia than by credibility. The company tied its identity reset to an electric future and introduced a new brand system built around a revised wordmark and what Jaguar calls a “device mark,” promoted under the slogan “Copy Nothing.” The launch also included a short promotional video that featured models in brightly colored fashion, paired with slogans such as “create exuberant,” “live vivid,” and “delete ordinary,” and it did not show a vehicle. Online critics described the campaign as “woke,” a label Jaguar’s managing director, Rawdon Glover, disputed in interviews as he defended the strategy. “To bring back such a globally renowned brand, we had to be fearless,” Glover said. Fortune reported that Jaguar sales fell more than 40% in the first half of fiscal 2025 to roughly 14,000 cars, which intensified scrutiny of the repositioning effort.

In professional sports, branding changes can face a more immediate test because fans treat identity as history. After criticism of elements displayed on Washington’s NFL franchise crest, the team announced a revision and posted, “We heard you loud and clear,” while explaining that the crest would reflect Super Bowl victories using the year from that regular season. The change did not resolve every dispute around identity, but it showed how quickly a loyal audience can force an adjustment when symbolism becomes the dispute.

These examples show that redesigns fail in more than one way. Some trigger backlash because customers interpret the new look as abandonment of tradition. Others collapse when the redesign draws attention for the wrong reason and becomes a proxy battle over credibility. In each case, backlash becomes the headline, and the brand spends its launch window trying to regain control of its message. That is why companies treat redesigns as business decisions rather than design exercises. Logos and packaging influence recognition, confidence, and perceived value at the moment of purchase. A redesign can succeed when it clarifies what the brand stands for and keeps essential cues intact. A redesign can falter when it sacrifices continuity or asks the audience to do interpretive work.

Lay’s now sits inside that wider trend as a current example. PepsiCo said Lay’s will roll out a global visual redesign and pair it with an ingredient commitment in the United States. The company said it will remove artificial flavors and colors from artificial sources from all core Lay’s potato chip products in the United States by the end of 2025, and it said the update includes a revised logo, new packaging and updated product photography.

“This redesign, the brand’s biggest in nearly a century, is a love letter to our origins,” said Carl Gerhards, senior director of design at PepsiCo’s global Lay’s division. Gerhards said the team built a flexible system intended to carry across countries while celebrating familiar flavors.

PepsiCo said internal research identified a perception gap among some consumers about what the product is made from, and it framed the packaging update as a way to make the potato itself and farm imagery more central. Capital Press reported that Lay’s revamped its branding after 42% of consumers did not realize their potato chips were made from “real, farm-grown potatoes,” and it said media outlets attributed the figure to a PepsiCo survey conducted in 2021.

“It did surprise me that it was that high, but it didn’t shock me, because there are still people who think potatoes grow on trees,” said Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington Potato Commission, referring to the share of consumers who did not know chips come from potatoes.

Lay’s is also illustrating another reason redesigns keep accelerating across major brands. The decision point is no longer limited to a physical shelf. Packaging now competes on digital storefronts where products appear as thumbnail images in retailer apps and delivery platforms. That shift pressures brands to simplify layouts, sharpen contrast, and enlarge key marks that remain legible at small sizes, even when those changes risk stripping away details longtime customers associate with heritage.

Operational rollout adds another constraint that consumers rarely see. A redesign does not appear everywhere at once, and old and new looks can coexist during transitions across manufacturing, distribution and retail cycles. A transition that removes signature cues too quickly can produce confusion during the overlap, especially when shoppers encounter both versions within the same routine.

PepsiCo said all core United States Lay’s products would move away from artificial flavors and colors from artificial sources by the end of 2025. Updated packaging introduced late in 2025 reflects that change with clearer ingredient messaging and more prominent potato imagery. Two months into 2026, there are no publicly released figures isolating the impact of the ingredient shift on Lay’s sales or market share. PepsiCo has discussed broader pricing adjustments and category softness in snacks, but available reporting does not attribute any specific gain or decline directly to the reformulation.