In Defense of a Supercat, Jaguar
A new rebranding campaign for an iconic car was hated by many. One expert called it a dog’s breakfast! The launch video featured oddly dressed people in brightly colored flowing robes and clothes, including one model with a very large sledgehammer (!), posing to great music. It featured no cars.
The reactions from social media were brutal. The great Elon Musk asked the question everyone wanted to, “Do you sell cars?”.
Going back in time, William Walmsley, the son of a coal merchant and William Lyons, the son of a music shop owner, created a car that would embody British elegance – the Jaguar.
The car designs were so iconic that I would find myself opening a browser to search for images of the XK140 and the Jag convertibles.
Francoise Sagan, the author who wrote her own rather brilliant obit loved these cars. Here’s her obituary: "Appeared in 1954 with a slender novel, Bonjour Tristesse, which created a scandal worldwide. Her death, after a life and a body of work that were equally pleasant and botched, was a scandal only for herself."
A Jaguar quote attributed to her is, "Money may not buy happiness, but I'd rather cry in a Jaguar than on a bus." Like the car, and Francoise, everything about the car is unique and slightly weird (like the zebra styled car featured in the promo).
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The car company has been through many hands from Ford to Tata Motors who now own the brand. Generations of Jag fans cling on to a dying past, and they were not happy when the company’s creative chief Gerry McGovern, came up with the new rebranding theme – “delete ordinary” and “copy nothing”.
Many people may hate the new scratchy logo, and miss the the mean-looking growler and its predecessor, the leaping prowler, but I think the new branding is brilliant, bold and beautiful. It breaks from a past that many people do not think is cool anymore. The British empire is not what it was and “cool” has a new meaning, form and character. We just have to get with the program. At least the haters need to!
When I changed the name of my agency three times (The Whitefield Group to FMG, to FMG/POD1 to BORN), I was told that the end was near, people would hate the new brand and I would lose the cachet of loyal customers each brand had earned over the years. None of the doomsday predictions came true. People will accept a new brand name if the product gets better and better. And we hope that's what will happen with the Jag.
In defense of my supercat, the Jag, Onwards and Upwards.
Your fearless follower.
Visual Artist | CoFounder at Chitrapata
3 个月Advertising has always been about breaking existing mental models and adapting to the shifting mindset of relevant customer base(s). I liked the ad.
The spirit of ecstasy and the all muscular Jaguar are part of the iconic brand images. The cost of rebranding could have been better utilized to enhance product engineering and reliability. Whoever sold the cool-ade to the house of Tata to rebrand is indeed smart and the fact that they bought it.BTW, you still remember the Jag we all jointly financed? ??
Global leadership roles with renowned beauty and lifestyle brands.
4 个月The myth behind the word Jaguar is that it presented unparalleled wisdom and strength. There is no wisdom or strength with this campaign. Jaguar is about grace, space and the pace of their cars. The emotive need of a Jaguar customer is to experience quiet luxury, elegance and grace as it is put through its paces. And as someone who has owned a series of Jaguars I speak from experience. And sorry no "we do not have to get with the program". The campaign is not vivid or exburant. Nor is it ground breaking. If a Jaguar could come to life it would not be domesticated, it would be angry and clawing at this campaign to make it stop. As a past campaign said 'you enjoy a very special type of motoring - when you own a Jaguar.' There is nothing enjoyable about this campaign. No matter how you try to spin it, or think it is award winning, it it the beginning of the end for this car mark. And maybe it will be awarded for just doing that - killing a heritage brand that had potential to build on its past while driving ino the future.
20+yrs in SG & 20+yrs in MM; Fueling growth for B2B & B2C brands through strategic innovation, dynamic content, and measurable results. Skilled in strategic branding, digital transformation, creatives & P&L Management.
4 个月https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/soewynna-wayne_probably-the-most-talked-about-ad-2024-vs-activity-7265417359765434368-codi?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android