Jaguar's re-brand two months in: Corporate triumph or automotive tragedy in the making? | Opinion

It feels like a couple of months’ worth of water passing under the Jaguar re-brand bridge is enough to cool off the heat generated by the 30-second ‘Copy Nothing’ video released in mid-November last year and the unveiling of the Type 00 (zero zero) Concept at Miami Art Week in early December.

Arguably, the thermo-nuclear mainstream and social media meltdown that followed those two events demonstrates the emotional attachment the broader populace has to the Jaguar brand and the length of the limb the company’s current management has edged out onto in launching such a conspicuously divisive strategy.

The polarised response, with most people seemingly positioned firmly towards one pole, was reminiscent of the first showing of Tesla’s Cybertruck in 2019.

It was a ‘meme vehicle’, ‘a scam’, ‘a child’s toy’, a ‘mass of angry polygons’. In short, a bad joke on four-wheels destined to bring Tesla crashing down.

But despite a lengthy gestation period and comical launch (bulletproof windows fail, anyone?) the production version hit the road in late 2023 and, low and behold, Tesla remains alive and (largely) well.    

Cybertruck owners seem to be as happy as my Uncle Ern opening the beer fridge door, but for others a sighting of this three tonne, stainless steel clad monster is like pointing a finger at a sideshow oddity. And maybe that’s the point.  

Tesla Cybertruck

Jaguar sales have been on a road to nowhere for some time because, despite what appears to be a residual groundswell of affection for the brand, people have been reluctant to enter its showrooms.

There was a similar outcry here when Holden stopped local Commodore production back in 2017. Sure, the Federal Government turning off the ‘industry co-investment’ tap had something to do with it. But clearly, despite heart-felt love for the car, people weren’t buying Commodores because they didn’t suit the market.

Holden VF Commodore

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is profitable, but that’s courtesy of the LR side of the equation. Global Jaguar sales have been in freefall, with each car likely made and sold at a loss.

And a decades-long struggle between heritage and innovation saw Jaguar enter a kind of design and development paralysis, where even its relatively early move into electrification with the I-Pace EV SUV missed the mark.

I recall a meeting with Jag’s then head of design, Geoffrey Lawson at the company’s then Coventry HQ in the early '90s where he spoke about grappling with this conundrum.

Jaguar I-Pace

He was working on what would become the XK8, but also wrestling with the broader challenge of making Jaguars appealing to younger luxury car buyers.

The XK8 remains a supremely well resolved GT coupe (Lawson led the XJ200 design program, after all) but other new models — the S-Type as a 5 Series/E-Class rival, and the X-Type as a 3 Series/C-Class competitor — didn’t fire.

In fact, the X-Type in particular, just became a cheaper way for traditional Jaguar prospects (old blokes) to get behind the wheel.   

Jaguar X-Type

The largely retro look and feel, including the leather, walnut and plush carpets wasn’t pushing the right buttons with the right people. And if you’ve ever had the dubious honour of sitting in the back of an X-Type you’ll know it didn’t break any ground in terms of packaging.

The subsequent evolution of SUV offerings and even the beautiful F-Type haven’t done enough to keep that line on the sales chart moving up and to the right.

And, of course, there’s the brand’s ethnic origins. Despite current ownership by India’s giant Tata Group, Jaguar remains British to its boot straps. Which, like it or not, infers a base level of conservative reserve.

Jaguar S-Type

As an exhausted Archie Leach (John Cleese) says to the exuberant Wanda Gershwitz (Jamie Lee Curtis) in A Fish Called Wanda, “Wanda, do you have any idea what it’s like being British?". 

So, when a Jaguar rebrand strategy leads with a theme of ‘Exuberant Modernism’ and a statement of intent that says it will focus on “Unexpected and original thinking, creating a brand character that will command attention through fearless creativity” it’s a seismically big deal, especially in the UK.

‘Copy Nothing’, a phrase attributed to Jaguar founder Sir William Lyons, is one of the key headlines leading the launch video, cast with a diverse group of people, on the surface of what appears to be Mars, clad in an extreme multi-coloured wardrobe with hair and make-up to match.

Aside from a distinctly anti-LGBTQ+ line of vitriol, the video attracted waves of criticism for ignoring Jaguar’s heritage and alienating its core customers with a ‘woke’ philosophy. But heritage and core customers clearly haven’t been working for the business for some time.

In launching the rebrand, Jaguar CEO Adrian Mardell said, "The magic of Jaguar is close to my heart – an original British luxury brand unmatched in its heritage, artistry and emotional magnetism. 

“That’s the Jaguar we are recapturing and we will create the same sense of awe that surrounded iconic models like the E‑type.”

And Jaguar Managing Director Rawdon Glover said, “To bring back such a globally renowned brand we had to be fearless”.

The question of what a brand is is a whole other discussion but at the very least it’s history, personal experience, products and touchpoints wrapped up in a visual identity.

So, many have asked how a brand can be ‘brought back’ if sizeable chunks of it have been lopped off and ‘disappeared’ East German Stasi-style.

Jaguar Type 00 Concept

There’s a new JaGUar ‘Device Mark’, which has caused much gnashing of teeth because it mixes upper- and lower-case type and is seen as derivative, as well as ‘Maker’s Marks’ (the surviving Jaguar ‘leaper’ and a new monogram) the ‘Strikethrough’ (close parallel lines or strakes) and use of ‘exuberant colours’.

Interesting to note Autocar India got its hands on a leaked letter from Jaguar’s internal design team to their boss Gerry McGovern noting their “collaborative ethos and creative integrity” had been undermined by Jaguar’s decision to outsource creation of these visual elements to external consultants Accenture Interactive.

And the team didn’t like the work, stating that instead of creating a unique visual identity, the logo leans toward a generic aesthetic, failing to embody the exuberance and distinctiveness they had envisioned.

But despite that internal discontent, you get the feeling, especially when it comes to YouTube vids critiquing the campaign, the outsiders making negative comments are, like me, not ‘new’ Jaguar’s target market.

Jaguar wants to appeal to “younger and wealthier [consumers who are] more connected and more urban” and is aiming to sell fewer cars at higher prices (think up to Aston Martin and Bentley level).

It’s opening ‘Jaguar houses’ in Paris, London and elsewhere, with the expectation that 80 per cent of customers will be new to the brand.

It’s suspended production, except F-Pace at the Solihull plant and is investing £15B over five years to electrify a new Jaguar product line-up.

Jaguar F-Pace

For reference, Jaguar Australia told us that,”F-Pace production continues at our Solihull plant in 2025. There has not been a date set for the end of production, so it is business as usual.”

Also worth noting an F-Pace 90th Anniversary edition will launch here this year (with P250 and P400e powertrains) with the hint of an F-Pace SVR in the wind.

Which brings us to the Type 00 Concept developed by Gerry McGovern and his mildly disgruntled team. 

Unveiled at an art event (presumably because the CES is so mainstream and nerdy now) it’s been compared to an oversize Chrysler Crossfire. But there’s no doubting its proportions are imposing and its detailing intriguing.

Riding on the brand’s new ‘JEA’ (Jaguar Electric Architecture) platform it previews the design direction for three new production cars, the first being a GT four-door, already in prototype development.

Jaguar Type 00 Concept

To be revealed late this year and on sale towards the end of 2026, it will boast a close to 700km range, all-wheel drive (which presumably means twin motors) and rear-steer with pricing kicking off at around £120,000 ($240,000).

Two cars were shown, one in ‘Satin Rhodon Rose’ (dubbed ‘Miami Pink’) and another in ‘Inception Silver Blue’ (aka ‘London Blue’).

The interior is starkly minimalist, and without getting into the weeds on the treatment, all you need to know is “travertine stone functions as a plinth, supporting the floating seats”. Hardly production ready, then, but a clear statement of intent.

And as the heat in the discussion surrounding this re-brand / re-launch / re-birth has dissipated it’s been fascinating to look back at the commentary it’s generated.

No matter which side of the new Jaguar fence you’re sitting on Marina Hyde in The Guardian surely deserves an award for her story titled, ‘Hats off to Jaguar’s ‘inclusive’ new branding: now people of all backgrounds won’t buy its cars’.  

As a writer, reading this piece is like being a club motorsport battler watching from the pits as Max Verstappen tears up the track; her key point being that the latest US election result makes the initiative even more of a “period piece” than she believed it was already destined to be.

Jaguar Type 00 Concept

Rob Meyerson, in his story ‘The Jaguar rebrand was just the first misstep’ in How brands are built contends everything we’ve seen so far is just a “trailer” for a more complete re-brand; we should wait for the full-length feature film (not withstanding the fact that trailers typically contain all the movie’s best bits).

Meyerson contends, “A killer final product can make even a bollocks-filled visual identity, launch video, and Design Vision Concept all but irrelevant”.

Having said that he doesn’t hold back, adding, “It claims to ‘copy nothing’ (a line from Jaguar’s founder, Sir William Lyons) while copying just about everything. The banal, verb-adjective headlines are reminiscent of Apple’s 1997 “Think Different” (and every campaign that’s copied it since). 

“The typography is not exactly groundbreaking; it’s already been compared to the logos of Motorola, Dyson and others. 

“The symmetrical JR monogram copies — almost to the point of parody — a luxury fashion trope employed by Chanel, Gucci, Givenchy, Giorgio Armani, Tory Burch and Fendi,” he said.

I can’t help but add that surely the ‘jr’ monogram will also ring a bell with anyone who witnessed the Bathurst 1000 through the ‘80s, proudly sponsored by that producer of non-asbestos laden products, James Hardie. 

Mark Ritson in MarketingWeek follows the popular ‘why throw the baby out with the bath water?’ line in his story ‘Jaguar has rebranded when it needed to revitalise’.

While positioning the current line-up as a “garage full of often average cars” suffering from “poor reliability” he’s not alone in saying, “Jaguar’s bizarre new campaign marks a complete overhaul of its positioning, when instead it should have celebrated and updated what once made it great’.

He adds, “The assorted auto journalists attending Jaguar’s media launch this week weren’t impressed. In one particularly bruising review, James Baggott from Car Dealer described the launch event as a “drunken dream”, “incredibly bizarre” and akin to being trapped inside a cult for the afternoon.”

But on the other hand, Manfredi Ricca’s story ‘Why critics of Jaguar’s rebrand are missing the point’ in Raconteur says, “JLR wasn’t looking for an evolution of a thriving brand. It was looking to reinvent an ailing one. 

“The reality is that today there are more people celebrating Jaguar’s heritage than those who actually want Jaguar’s cars.”

Jaguar Type 00 Concept

And James Morris writing for Forbes goes as far as to say ‘The Jaguar Rebrand Is Absolute Genius — Here’s Why’.

He’s not the only one to note the sheer volume of coverage the program has generated, positive and negative (this story being a case in point). That everyone’s talking about Jaguar to the point where it’s become a global general news story.

Sure enough he quotes Oscar Wilde famously saying, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

And it’s worth noting, at the time of writing the ‘Copy Nothing’ video on Jaguar’s YouTube channel alone had racked up 3.7M views with nearly 45,000 comments underneath it.

Morris adds, “If a brand isn’t profitable, that by implication means its existing customer base doesn’t provide sufficient financial benefit.

“I’d be surprised if JLR hadn’t accumulated market intelligence pointing to a sufficiently large and young new audience with specific attitudinal and economic traits and identified an opportunity space matching the brand’s profile," he said.

Jaguar Type 00 Concept

In other words, small group of Tesla Cybertruck owners – happy. Everyone else — bewildered.

So, a couple of months on from campaign detonation at Jaguar ground point zero it appears to be a case of something… in fact, anything needed to be done to shake Jaguar out of what looked to be a terminal slump.

Time will tell whether the direction it has taken is the right one. But for what it’s worth, a brand shouting about how out there it is, how creative and daring it’s going to be smacks of that bloke in the pub, right in your face telling you about how good a driver/lover/athlete he is. Me thinks old mate doth protest too much.

But, when you seemingly have nothing to lose, taking a big swing is arguably the best, if not the only, option. It will be fascinating to watch Jaguar rise to new heights or (sadly) sink below the waves.

What do you think? Is Jaguar’s re-brand campaign a potential corporate triumph or automotive tragedy in the making? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.