In defense of the Jaguar rebrand

Barbenheimer is back – only this time its car adverts. In the pink corner, Jaguar’s divisive new brand launch that features beautiful people in funky, hyper colourful outfits that plays like an ultra-lux fashion brand advert with a strong whiff of Barbie movie about it. “Controversially” it also doesn’t feature a car in it – which annoyed lots of people, especially Elon Musk. Meanwhile the beige corner the new Volvo EX90 advert that was done by the Oppenheimer cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema and is A LOT more serious.

On the face of it, the Volvo ad is easier to get on board with, its much safer in every way. At first, I thought I had clicked on the wrong video and was watching a trailer for a new Sally Rooney adaptation which also doesn’t feature a car in it…until right at the end. Personally, I thought it was slightly indulgent (for a car advert) but emotionally effective nonetheless. It also stays very much in Volvo’s lane brand-wise. It’s polished, sophisticated, vaguely European and most importantly, safe with a capital S.

Jaguar on the other hand, are trying to do something a lot harder…and braver. Since 2018, Jaguar’s sales of EV cars have struggled in the face of stiff competition from Tesla and (new) Chinese and Korean brands. Something radical needed to be done. So, Jaguar has decided to go dormant until at least 2026 while it completely overhauls the business and retools to produce only high-end luxury electric vehicles. Jaguar is putting its money where its mouth is and has already invested around $320 million to prepare its Halewood, UK plant for all-EV production, and plans to inject another $320 million into the plant in the coming year or so.

Alongside this complete restructuring of the business, Jaguar decided that it needs a clean break from the past and use this pause in commercial activity to completely reinvent the Jaguar brand for future generations. To that end, Jaguar has deleted its social media archive and put up a shiny new brand positioning video in its place. If the online / media commentary is anything to go on, the new brand ad has not been well received and in particular seems to have incited the ire of culture warriors. Commenter sentiment across all social media channels has been pretty uniformly negative with the “go woke, go broke” slogan making a return – even Nigel Farage got in on the act ‘sensationally’ predicting the company will go bust as a result of this branding misstep.

The emotional reaction to this break from the past is understandable, particularly from UK audiences with a more conservative political outlook. Jaguar is (or at least was) an iconic British heritage brand that conjured up a certain aspirational and raffish charm of a bygone age. Even if it is now owned by Tata, for many Brits, and many others around the world, Jaguar was one of the few remaining symbols of quintessential ‘Britishness’ and British luxury in engineering form. A funky, modern rebrand for future generations was always going to invoke a strong reaction whatever direction they went in, and the direction they seem to have picked is “go big or go home”. One would hope that Jaguar has done its homework, and this new direction plays well with their new target customers in the long term.

If we can rise above all the online screaming and rush to judgment for a moment, there is a sound strategic logic to what Jaguar are doing, even if the success of the execution is up for debate. As for Elon Musk’s criticism that it doesn’t feature a car in it, that is kind of the point - you won’t be to get a Jaguar until 2026 at the earliest - so there is no car to sell. Positioning the brand and its values in their own right, prior to launching the product is absolutely the right thing to do from a communications perspective. In a delicious irony the new advert has also received the kind of attention most branding and communications agencies can only dream of – even if it is negative.

Former racing legend and commentator Martin Brundle perhaps summed it up best: “I have no idea what this is all about, but it’s genius. Everyone is talking about Jaguar in a moment of time when they’re not actually making cars. […] Welcome to the single biggest talking point in the car world this year.” 

In line with the brand positioning, Jaguar unveiled its extravagant new concept car today, which will no doubt whip up another round of furious publicity in the coming days and weeks. Ultimately, the proof of this bold new direction will be in how well the new car(s) sell and whether they can pull off their new brand promise and actually ‘break the mould’. This will to some extent come down to how good the car is and price point. Either way it will be one to watch for branding history books - it could be the disruptive branding play of the decade – I hope they pull it off.