Brand refreshes are often controversial, but few have generated as much negativity and comment worldwide as Jaguar’s car-less, logo-less, seemingly gender-less, teaser promotion. But is it teaser genius or brand suicide?
The hot topic of news shows, podcasts and even political commentary around the world – even featuring on my favourite podcast, the 100 million download The News Agents – Jaguar’s move to ‘copy nothing’ and move away from its (insufficiently large) tweedy, older audience has generated huge commentary – about 99% of which has been negative.
See the teaser HERE:
There’s no doubt that Jaguar’s strategy is to move away from the dwindling tweed market and re-invent itself to find new, life-saving pools of well-heeled buyers of electric vehicles, as has been recognised by Jaguar’s Managing Director, Rawdon Glover, in a Financial Times interview (as well as countless others, most likely). "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. We need to reestablish our brand and at a completely different price point, so we need to act differently. We wanted to move away from traditional automotive stereotypes."
So it’s death or change. I get it. However, the questions everyone’s asking are: have they pushed it too far? What the heck is it all about? Is this where their future audience lies? And where is the actual car?
One thing is for sure: Jaguar is getting a huge amount of worldwide attention. Its message of ‘change’ is clear. But it’s not 100% clear what the change will actually look like. It reminds me a bit of when I worked at Barclays Bank as part of the promotion team for the new ‘Fluent In Finance’ brand refresh in the early 2000s, when fairly impenetrable ads featured Samuel L Jackson – and not a lot of banking. Back then the big question we were getting was “huh?”. But a lot of people were looking at it. To an extent, there’s some similarity now: I’m getting some memories, that’s for sure - some uncomfortable, too.
One car company that for me has consistently led the way in brand evolution into a stylish electric future, in direct contrast with their boxy days of being the 1970s family wagon, is Volvo. Check out their extremely powerful latest brand-building ad, which simultaneously celebrates Volvo's safety heritage, tells a powerful and relatable human story, and moves their brand forward, all while showing you something you’d want to actually buy.
Is this what Jaguar wanted to do? Clearly not. So what did Jaguar intend with its primary, fluid teaser? In my view, tease. One thing is for sure, love it or hate the ad, we’re all wondering what the actual car will look like when it is revealed at Miami Art Week on 2 December.
No pressure then.
So, while we wait for the cloth to be lifted, my question to you is this: do you agree with Nigel Farage that it’s an offensive disregard of heritage; is it a Bud Light / Pepsi brand disaster; might it be the greatest click bait attention getter since Kim Kardashian’s bum; or is it something else…? You tell me: