You could do better than Jaguar – right?

I relate to the Jaguar marketing team. But not for the reasons you might think.

It’s taken me a while to put down in words what was going through my head as it was all playing out. I was watching the rebrand drama closely, just like everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, it was a car crash (excuse the pun). What’s making me empathise though is seeing everyone offering their take on how they could handle the rebrand better. If only they’d have been behind the steering wheel, Jaguar would be laughing right now right??

I’m sure many marketers relate. There’s something about our profession. Everyone thinks they can do it – especially after the fact. You don’t really get this with any other department. I will never claim to be better at maths than an accountant. If I was in charge of IT, we’d be offline within a week. I have no idea how to officially underwrite anything.

People assume marketing is easy. They think it’s immediate. A single social post about a product will lead to countless leads. If only.

Anyone who has been part of a marketing team knows this is very far from the truth. Marketing is a discipline. It’s so much more than a couple of adverts, with the odd event thrown in for good measure.

Marketing is delivering the right product, in exact circumstances, for very specific target markets. It’s monitoring market and economic trends that can change in a heartbeat. It’s scouring through data, keeping up with competitors, and strategising for both tomorrow, and five years from now. It’s all this, plus trying to come up with something new that will mark you out from never-ending alternatives.

Or, as the Chartered Institute of Marketing puts it: “Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”

So, I’m not sure an idea two days before launch will make the impact that people think, nor will giving good ideas after the fact. Timeframes on ideation need to be dramatically expanded.

Sticking with the car theme I’ve found myself with – let’s take an example from Fiat. The Italian motoring brand announced it would no longer make grey cars. It vowed to inject more colour into our lives.

To show its commitment, the company produced a promotional video for their plans, the kind that’s meant to go viral and get people talking. The video had Olivier Francois, CEO of Fiat, get into one of its new 600e cars, and be lowered into a giant tub of orange paint.

Sounds relatively straightforward right? Someone probably thought of that idea in a random meeting, and Mr Francois was ready to film within a few weeks.

Wrong. The whole process, from conception to execution, took an entire year. There were months upon months of pitching alone. Also, imagine the logistics. Do you have any idea how much it costs to hire a crane for something like this? Who do you call for a giant tub of orange paint?

I do sympathise, to an extent. I’m aware that featuring a key word in a piece of content multiple times can look a bit awkward. But, having those key words takes that page from 6th place to 1st in Google’s rankings. Posting every day on social media can look like a lot. But posting daily can result in leads jumping by many multiples in mere months.

So, do I think the Jaguar re-brand is good, or perfect? No. Do I empathise with their plight, however? Absolutely.