A promotional video for a rebrand of British luxury car brand Jaguar is being criticized online for showing models in brightly colored outfits — and no car.
The rebrand, which includes a new logo, is slated to launch Dec. 2 during the Miami Art Week, when the company will unveil a new electric GT model. But Jaguar Land Rover, a unit of India’s Tata Motors Ltd., has been promoting it online.
The Jaguar brand is in the middle of a transition to going all-electric.
“Copy Nothing,” marketing materials read. “We’re here to delete the ordinary. To go bold. To copy nothing.”
The promotional video, posted on X and Instagram, shows models dressed in futuristic brightly colored outfits walking in an alien-like landscape. “Break Moulds,” copy reads.
It drew ire online, with people complaining about the lack of a car and the confusing message. X owner Elon Musk wrote on X, “Do you sell cars?” People also complained about the new, stylized, logo. The “leaper” jaguar image has also been reimagined.
Charles Taylor, marketing professor at the Villanova School of Business in Villanova, Pennsylvania, said the promotional video strikes the wrong tone for potential buyers, and said the company is making a mistake by not using the brand’s heritage as an elegant British high-performance sports car in its marketing.
“If they came back with a really good electric vehicle, they could build on their prior image as opposed to really throwing out the heritage of the brand and going in this kind of direction,” he said. “It’s hard to see how the market of people that would like that approach is large enough for them to thrive.”
Rebranding is a common tactic for companies seeking to spark sales. Campbell Soup Co. on Wednesday officially changed its name to Campbell’s Co., and companies like Airbnb and Instagram update their logos from time to time.
But if they strike a wrong chord, the result can be disastrous. Past rebranding failures include Tropicana changing its logo in 2009 to omit its trademark orange — it soon changed it back. And Radio Shack rebranded to “The Shack” in 2008, alienating its core shoppers, before eventually filing for bankruptcy protection in 2015.
Jaguar Land Rover, based in Whitney, Coventry, in the U.K., did not return a request for comment.
here are many eve-of-the-offensive conversations I would love to have been a fly on the wall for. Inside the Trojan horse, say, with that Ancient Greek SAS unit bantering the day away, before busting out for their daring small-hours raid. Or inside the Jaguar marketing department, on the night before their new rebrand, as these crack experiential troops prepared to release this week’s new ad on an unsuspecting luxury car market. Picture the champagne corks popping as the socials are timed to post the video at the appointed hour. “I hope the pre-order guys are ready for an onslaught – because we’ve got eight capital-D diverse models in category-five tulle busting out of a pink-planet lift wielding a hammer – and precisely NO cars! Let’s make some sales history!”
Anyhow. Arguably it’s gone slightly worse than the wooden horse, which, when you think about it, was one of the most successful high performance vehicles in history/mythology. Sure, it was oversized, over-reliant on heritage materials, and probably took corners like a supertanker – and yet, I defy you not to take your hat off. No one said urban warfare couldn’t be quirky and design-led.
Back in the present day, meanwhile, marketing folklore is already building up around the Jaguar campaign, which made its debut this week to reactions ranging from vocal bemusement to vocal derision. As far as I can make out, the best this ad’s defenders can come up with is that “the internet is talking about it”, which these days feels a bit like that South Park episode where some gnomes devise a business plan that runs: 1. Collect underpants. 2.? 3. Profit.
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