On Sunday, just two days after announcing it would be pulling some Duck Dynasty products featuring Phil Robertson from its stores, Cracker Barrel announced that it had reversed itself and would reinstate all Duck Dynasty products. In an announcement via Twitter, Cracker Barrel wrote:
Dear Cracker Barrel Customer:
When we made the decision to remove and evaluate certain Duck Dynasty items, we offended many of our loyal customers. Our intent was to avoid offending, but that’s just what we've done.
You told us we made a mistake. And, you weren't shy about it. You wrote, you called and you took to social media to express your thoughts and feelings. You flat out told us we were wrong.
We listened.
Today, we are putting all our Duck Dynasty products back in our stores.
And, we apologize for offending you.
We respect all individuals right to express their beliefs. We certainly did not mean to have anyone think different.
We sincerely hope you will continue to be part of our Cracker Barrel family.
Within 40 minutes, the post had been liked by almost 10,000 people.
LMAO GREED. After thousands and thousands of FB posts on their wall and other walls. Talk about losing customers. Money talks. Now lets see what A&E does. I hope they have plenty of gay viewers.
Well, this is all rather confusing. The original announcement was that Cracker Barrel was removing Duck DYNASTY products but was still selling Duck COMMANDER products.
ZitatCracker Barrel’s mission is Pleasing People. We operate within the ideals of fairness, mutual respect and equal treatment of all people. These ideals are the core of our corporate culture. We continue to offer Duck Commander products in our stores. We removed selected products which we were concerned might offend some of our guests while we evaluate the situation. We continually evaluate the products we offer and will continue to do so.
"Dynasty" .... "Commander" ..... What's the difference?
The Duck DYNASTY brand is owned by A&E Network. The Duck COMMANDER brand is wholly owned by the Robertson family. This led to the situation where some people supporting Phil Robertson's religious belief rights were cheering Cracker Barrel for supporting the Robertson family by dumping the Dynasty products while others were furious at Cracker Barrel because they took the dumping of the Dynasty products to mean a dumping of the Robertson family. Yep. Clear as mud. To be honest, I'm not clear about what Cracker Barrel's original intention was but the end result was that Cracker Barrel ended up getting slammed from all sides.
The situation was such a total mess that somebody at corporate probably just decided to push the "Never Mind" Button.
What I heard (thru several support pages on FB who had contact with them) is they were removing things with Phils pix on it or anything that said happy, happy, happy. Not that they were removing duck dynasty brand and keeping duck commander.
And..although most of these FB pages are willing to forgive and forget...a whole lot of customers arent so willing, as per their posts. So...Cracker Barrel shot themselves in the foot..for not just ignoring the whole thing, like other businesses selling this merchandise did. What was their point?