Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Will automaker Jaguar win an award for the worst advertisement of the year? The Tata Group company has been engulfed in a tidal wave of derisive criticism and outright scorn over its brand relaunch that features models sporting asymmetrical haircuts and bizarre outfits.
There’s not a single image of a Jaguar car or of the famous Jaguar Leaper that once adorned the bonnet of every luxury automobile that left the company’s factory.
Pouring a barrelful of molten sarcasm over Jaguar’s attempt at reinvention, Guardian columnist Marina Hyde said: “Regrettable newsflash. Selling cars does remain the core mission of a car company.”
Elon Musk quickly voiced his disapproval of the ad featuring models clad in vibrant androgynous clothes. “Do you sell cars?” asked the founder and CEO of Tesla incredulously.
Certainly, Jaguar’s campaign has made a splash. It has gone viral, amassing an impressive 160 million views on social media. So, if one argues that all publicity is good publicity, the campaign has scored a win.
However, the fact remains that the response to the focus on diversity has been crushingly negative and left many viewers baffled.
In the ad, the models wander through what can best be described as a bleak Mars-like landscape and this action comes accompanied by slogans that flash across the screen.” Copy nothing,” reads the most prominent one, aiming to signal a fresh start for the brand. That’s followed by, “Delete ordinary” and then there’s “Live vivid”. The message is certainly bold, if unclear.
“Jaguar’s disastrous makeover has left many people wondering if it isn’t April Fool’s day,” said a distinctly unimpressed critic.
Even the company’s logo is undergoing a distinctly 21st-century makeover, now stylised as JaGUar in a mix of upper- and lower-case letters. The updated logo, according to the company, “seamlessly blends upper and lower case characters in visual harmony.” Additionally, the Leaping Jaguar will be demoted to another part of the vehicle while the iconic “Growler” Jaguar face is being thrown by the roadside.
Jaguar’s managing director, Rawdon Glover, remains unrepentant and seemingly unfazed by the backlash to the rebranding. He told the Financial Times (FT) that the company’s intended message had got lost in “a blaze of intolerance” and denied accusations that the company was attempting to be “woke”.
He argues that the company needs a new, stand-out message to distinguish it from the traffic jam on the highways of the world. “If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we’ll just get drowned out. So we shouldn’t turn up like an auto brand,” he told the FT.
The ad comes as Jaguar has been battling bad sales with a 40-per-cent plunge in sales in the first half of the financial year 2025 leading to just 14,000 cars being sold. He insisted that overall reactions to the ad were “very positive”.
But he added that he had been very disappointed by, what he called, “the level of vile hatred and intolerance” directed at the ad’s models. Much of the criticism on social media has been homophobic.
However, more brickbats followed when its head of Brand Strategy, Santino Pietrosanti, was filmed defending what might be described as an unabashedly “woke” agenda.
He insisted that, “at Jaguar we are passionate about our people and committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive and unified culture that is representative not only of the people who use our products but in a society in which we all live – a culture where our employees can bring their authentic selves to work.
He added: “We’re on a transformative journey of our own driven by a belief in diversity, inclusion, creativity, policy and most importantly, action.”
The reality is that Jaguar is in the midst of a huge transition and currently has no cars to sell. The storied brand driven by prime ministers, royals and chief executives has ceased selling new cars in the UK as it prepares to launch an all-electric line-up by 2026. Earlier this year, it discontinued sales of the XE and XF sedans and the F-Type sports car. Now its has pulled two more models – its bestselling F-Pace SUV and the E-Pace junior SUV. The company is permanently retiring its internal combustion engines, signalling its daring pivot to an all-electric future.
Other automakers are continuing to manufacture gas-powered vehicles while they get ready to their EV lineup. But Jaguar has announced that “from November 2024, new Jaguar sales will come to an end ahead of our new brand reveal” in December and product launch which is expected to be in mid-2026 at the earliest.
The company insists it is not going downmarket. Quite the opposite, it declares. From 2026, its new models will target the super-rich with a price tag exceeding POUNDS STERLING 100,000. The company says it aims to appeal to the growing band of young, rich potential customers.
Glover told the FT: “We don’t necessarily want to leave all of our customers behind. But we do need to attract a new customer base.”
But that’s a highly competitive market to crack with rivals like BMW, Mercedes and Audi, each jostling for space on the road.
Other auto companies have also embraced unconventional advertisements. Volvo, for instance, has just done a heart-warming and unusually long ad about a father learning he’s about to become a father. The car only appears briefly in the 3.45-minute ad. But the tagline – “Designed to be the safest Volvo car ever made. For Life,” plays on the carmaker’s famous reputation of being ultra-safe for families and has struck a chord with commentators who have described it as “beautiful” and “life-affirming”.
Meanwhile, Porsche’s latest ad focuses heavily on dynamic driving with the car driving along curvy, hilly roads and ending with a meeting of the old world and the new.
Leading advertising experts caution that brands can be destroyed almost overnight. With its latest campaign, Jaguar, once a crown jewel of British luxury cars, has taken a significant risk – on multiple fronts, analysts say.
Or, as one X user wrote: “Go woke. Go broke.”
