Learning from 2025’s Biggest Reputation Hits

Cracker Barrel made a logo change cost this restaurant icon nearly $100 million in market value. Where did it go wrong? Why did a national staple for southern cooking restaurants not understand their customers, and why did this relatively innocent action hurt their bottom line?

In this month's article, we will explore several of 2025’s crises best and worst ways they were managed, and what we should learn from them.  Potentially, learn how such impacts could hurt your company even though your company was not in the news.

Cracker Barrel

Cracker Barrel, known for its homestyle, southern-style food, is a staple found along highways across the US. This restaurant was known for traditional Southern hospitality and comfort food. CEO Julie Masino implemented a new campaign, 'All the More'. This included the renovation of nearly all their restaurants and the rebranding of their logo. In August of 2025, customers complained about the modernized remodels. But when the new logo was revealed, the stock plummeted 7.2% or $100 million in market value, as the customer base felt this once beloved icon had left them for a new, modern, traditional American restaurant.

The hit to their bottom line was felt almost immediately, and eventually the company announced the return to their original logo and halted the scheduled remodels.

One might think that the lack of understanding of their customer may have forced some changes to the marketing and future planning of the company, Cracker Barrel, further frustrated longtime customers by removing the New Year's Day southern staple of black-eyed peas from the menu. It may take years to recover from the loss.

What went wrong: Cracker Barrel ignored its customer base.

What went right: Remains to be seen.

Astronomer

Astronomer, a data management company, went viral for all the wrong reasons. You may recall the viral video from a Coldplay concert, where the kiss cam caught the CEO and HR director of the company turning and hiding in shame from the camera. The company's reaction may have been textbook perfect in addressing their sexual harassment policy; while not jumping to a conclusion, it could have been seen as rather hypocritical for senior management to violate the company's core values and employee expected behavior policies.

The company placed both on administrative leave, which eventually led to CEO Andy Byron's resignation and the eventual resignation of HR chief, Kristin Cabot.

What might we have learned from this?   First and foremost, do not place yourself in a compromising situation, and certainly not publicly.  Had they not turned in shame and acted as if it was just a camera shot, most would not have given the kiss cam another thought. Even if there had been others, concertgoers who knew one or both, the video would not have gone viral. So perhaps the second lesson is that if you are directly involved in an unfortunate situation, how you act can make all the difference.

Perhaps the most important lesson is that ethics matter. If you are responsible for a company's policy(s) and you do not apply them to your own actions, then you should step down. Potentially, the event could result in legal action from past disciplined employees who had violated the same policies these two ignored. At best, anyone who was aware of the affair and enforces the policies has lost credibility.

What went wrong: Leadership ignored company policies while publicly flaunting it.

What went right: Astronomer quickly put the two on administrative leave.

Amazon Web Services

In October of 2025, Amazon Web Services (AWS) had a global service disruption. The outage highlighted how reliant the internet has become on a small number of infrastructure service providers. AWS used textbook communications throughout the disruption, provided service board dashboards for customers, and promised a deep root cause analysis after the event.

Overall, the response was given high marks for the way in which it was handled. However, what if you were a customer directly impacted? I don’t think you could find fault in the way AWS managed the event, but this crisis identified fault in many companies' network/infrastructure architecture.

Using a huge company like AWS comes with certain assurances and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that are almost always met. Yet, depending upon a single service like AWS for your resilience calls out the potential shortsightedness of your resiliency planning.  It is always good to have resilience within your architecture, and though AWS offers multi-region services. This crisis, for some, showed how important multi-service provider resilience for critical infrastructure is. Simply put, you need to plan for critical impacts.

What went wrong: Customers discovered their resiliency was shortsighted.

What went right: Great communication and timely follow-up by AWS.

Federal Aviation Administration

In November of 2025, during the government shutdown, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initiated the reduction of flights by 10% at most major airports, and a few others. The crisis was a result of the government shutdown, resulting in staffing shortages when controllers declined to work without pay.

These unprecedented actions proved to maintain flight safety and the commitment of the government to do so. It was viewed as far better to have a capacity impedance than a safety-caused disaster.  Resiliency planners and corporate leaders can take a lesson from this, that at times it is better to take decisive action to avoid crisis/impacts than to take chances.

What went wrong: Inability to ensure personnel were available.

What went right: Reduced capacity for public safety.

American Eagle-commercial

American Eagle’s commercial with Sidney Sweeney poking fun at her good ‘jeans or genes’, initiated a firestorm of both good and bad press. However, the manner in which American Eagle handled it versus Sidney Sweeney was diametrically opposed.

American Eagle almost immediately came out with a statement, ‘Great jeans look good on everyone.’  They continued to state, "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans and (the commercial) was always about the jeans," the company said in a statement on Instagram.  The company doubled down on its message and played upon words, and the company's stock price and sales skyrocketed. The lesson here is that it is important to have a message that is true to your company's values and supports your customer base.

What went wrong: The commercial triggered a small market share.

What went right: American Eagle stood by their messaging despite the backlash.

Sidney Sweeney-commercial

Same incident but different response tactics. The lack of crisis plans by Sidney Sweeney’s PR team made her response one of the worst in the year. The actress’s PR Team was not prepared for the backlash but remained mostly silent. The silence allowed others to define her and her intention for doing the commercial. She faced accusations ranging from racism, promoting eugenics, as well as other claims. Though she said she was surprised by the reaction, her PR team's lack of preparation cost her a large reputational hit.

What went wrong: The PR team was ill-prepared for the projected outcry.

What went right: Sidney Sweeney has good jeans!

2025 Crisis Summary

Though there were many other crises during the year, I think these five stand out in the headlines of 2025. Each has its own unique impact, and understanding the cause and effect could help your company avoid a similar crisis.  Key takeaways are these points:

1. Know, listen, and never abandon your customer.

2. Ethical behavior matters.

3. Transparent communication, regular update intervals, and resulting after-action reports.

4. Understanding your company's limitations when using single-source solutions. 

5. Actions and communications that ensure safety and customer confidence are goals to strive for over risk that may result in a crisis.

6. Be prepared with appropriate messaging to maintain ownership of the news cycle for any known or unforeseen action taken by your company.

There are many more crises that occurred in 2025, but these are just a small handful. Hopefully, these six takeaways can help you review your resiliency planning and ensure a great result in the 2026 crisis that is sure to occur.

James Knox is a resiliency expert with an innovative spirit who thrives when building meaningful solutions to various daily problems in the corporate world. He is an avid outdoorsman and loves extreme rock crawling, fishing, and hunting. James has also been an elected official at local, city, and state level offices. As a resiliency expert, James has learned from necessity how to prepare for life’s bumps and thrive with practical and sensible solutions, supporting his family's self-sustaining lifestyle.