The first of a new generation of Jaguars will be unveiled in concept form in Miami on 2 December 2024. In the meantime, the storied British luxury car maker has released its new brand identity.
To say the response has been mixed is charitable at best… The vast majority of reactions to the new branding, which utilises bold primary colours, bespoke ‘Jaguar Exuberant’ font and mixed upper and lower case letters – just not in the order you’d expect – have been scathing…
We’ve let the (initial) dust settle since the branding and the fashion-focused video debuted on X and other social channels Tuesday night Australian time. Since then, there appear to be a (few) more positive voices emerging, but the jury remains firmly out.
Whether the brand will live or die will ultimately rest on the new models that are poised to take Jaguar into al all-electric age. The first of these, to be teased in Miami, arrives in showrooms in 2026 and is expected to be a four-door coupe akin to the Porsche Taycan. In the interim, all ICE Jaguars and the existing single EV model, i-PACE, will cease to exist. A special tranche of runout F-Type coupes is headed to Australian owners imminently.
But a brand misstep of significant proportions won’t help…
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When it comes to branding and marketing, everyone’s an expert. However, we consulted Australian brand and advertising expert Adam Ferrier to give us an informed opinion.
Ferrier founded leading agencies Thinkerbell and MSIX. He is a consumer psychologist, innovator, podcast host, general all-around comms, and marketing guru.
To put it kindly, he’s not convinced the rebrand is on point.
“I think it’s incomprehensible both in terms of its content and also why they’ll do such a thing. [But] we have to be careful that we’re judging everything here on a three-minute teaser video”
Ferrier told DMARGE
“There could be some sense that unfolds, but at the moment it doesn’t look like there is.”
Ferrier believes there’s significant equity in the existing Jaguar brand. He suggests – for now – the change is muddying the waters.
“It’s very, very hard to reposition a brand. To reposition something in the minds of consumers takes a lot of effort and is normally done incrementally. What they’ve tried to do is say the Jaguar brand used to stand for British elegance, and now it’s going to stand for God knows what? By repositioning it in such a drastic way, they’re just confusing [new] consumers. It will make people feel uncomfortable driving a Jaguar because they’re not sure what it is that Jaguar says about them.”
“Jaguar has got a really strong brand, both positive and negative. Unreliability would be part of it, a bit of inconsistency, but also British elegance would be part of it. Design would be part of it. Speed would be part of it. So even for new customers going in there, there’s still this kind of old heritage of what Jaguar is about. And then they’re [Jaguar] promising not to be anything that anyone else is, but not quite saying what they are… It’s a really confusing mishmash of messages.
“If they’re going to be this drastic. They’re almost better off just scrapping the Jaguar brand and starting again with a clean slate. But that in itself is ridiculous because it’s so expensive to build a brand.”
Ferrier agrees that Jaguar could potentially walk the extreme positioning back post-Miami.
“You can pretend to do something and then do something reasonable. And you could be doing that to try to jolt customer perceptions and say be prepared for something different. And that could just be almost a faux repositioning video they’ve put out there. And then they can do something more aligned with all the positive attributes of the brand. If that’s the case, then fine. They’ve got everyone’s attention. They’ve got everyone talking. It could be marketing genius,” he stated
He suggests that Volvo is a brand which Jaguar could learn from.
“A good evolution of their positioning [could be] something like Volvo, which used to stand for safety. Then they did their sponsorships, Twilight series and they just worked hard and then they kind of redefined their models a little bit to make them more contemporary… But they didn’t lose the essence of what the brand was about… [and] They were able to completely contemporize the brand and rejuvenate it without throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
Automotive commentators have roundly criticised Jaguar’s repositioning. Unsurprisingly, there’s been significant commentary on the brand’s own social channels – much of it countered by Jaguar moderators who seem to us to be trying just a little too hard.
Congratulations. You’ve killed a British icon.
Jaguar deleted all of its past posts on its Instagram account and just two new posts remain – the controversial video and a partial rear view of what we believe to be the new super-GT four-door.
The brand has also see-sawed on removing and reinstating commentary on its social channels from consumers since Tuesday night.
cd3294 commented on the video post: “Congratulations. You’ve killed a British icon”. At the time of writing, that had attracted almost 24,000 likes.
The sentiments are more positive in the post showing the Miami concept.
While this writer is no fan of Elon Musk, the Tesla founding billionaire arguably hit the nail on the head via X when, based on the new Jaguar brand video, he commented: “Do you sell cars?”
Effectively, the junior partner in the Jaguar Land Rover group, Jaguar is owned by the India-based Tata Group.
It has been moribund in most markets for the last decade after a series of unsuccessful new model launches and a tarnished brand reputation.
In 2023 it sold just over 64,000 cars globally. In Australia, just 650 new Jaguars have found homes YTD October 2024. Many of those registrations are company fleets and/or demos.
Yikes.
What have Jaguar’s marketing people said about the new direction?
During the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards last month, Santino Pietrosanti, UK Brand Director at Jaguar Land Rover, hinted at the brand’s forthcoming rebrand, describing it as part of the company’s ongoing “transformative journey.”
“We’re embarking on a transformation of our own, rooted in a commitment to diversity, inclusion, creativity, policy, and—most importantly—action,” Pietrosanti shared. “We’ve established over 15 DEI groups, including Pride, represented here tonight, and Women in Engineering and Neurodiversity Matters.”
He continued, “We’ve introduced significant policy changes, such as our ‘transitioning at work’ initiative, to foster equity and support our communities. At Jaguar Land Rover, individuality is our superpower.”
If you take note of Santino’s attire in the evening, it could have been a clue as to what was coming from him and his brand team.
Could the Jaguar rebrand be a PR stunt?
Yes, quite possibly. Even if it wasn’t meant to be a PR stunt, the brand could possibly wind the woke back and pitch this as one big elaborate PR campaign.
They may come out after the car’s reveal in Miami with a big ‘surprise’; the next stop they accept is the PR Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions next year.
You heard it here first; this whole thing could be a clever ruse. But then again, Santino’s outfit says otherwise. Watch this space.
