Rebranding campaigns are meant to generate favorable awareness and positive press coverage about products. But in the case of Jaguar, its efforts recently to rebrand the iconic British car created the wrong kind of attention, including a headline-making controversy, criticism, and detractors.
A promotional video for a rebrand of British luxury car brand Jaguar is being heavily criticized online for showing androgynous models in brightly colored gender-bending outfits … and no car.
Tata-owned JLR might have had record sales in the most recent financial year and sold over 400,000 cars. But almost all the profit came from the Land Rover side of the business. The Jaguar CEO Adrian Mardell reportedly told investors that the Jaguar models were generating “close to zero profitability”. Rather than wait to see the inevitable losses as Jaguar’s tired brand declines further, JLR has decided to shake things up and take the business firmly upmarket. Jaguar reportedly expects 85 per cent of future sales to be from customers completely new to the brand.
“Unfortunately, it appears Jaguar went too far in its attempt to be bold. The rebrand has created a crisis because they have successfully denounced what the brand has become known for and respected. This challenge is hard for humans because its a ‘redefining’ moment where they have thrown out the preexisting ‘meaning’ assigned to the perception of the automaker and then told the same audience a new ‘meaning’ that lacks substance and appears to be progress for the sake of progress,” he noted.
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“More importantly, the campaign appears disconnected from the very traits Jaguar spent decades building. Gone are the understated elegance, performance nods, and any clear connection to British heritage … For a car company to launch a rebrand video without a single reference to its cars, its core product, is simply mind-boggling,”
Amanda Stretton, a racing driver and motoring journalist, said that the size of the new car appeared to be "absolute nonsense". "It needs to be shrunk by about 50% to be practical."
The new dedicated Jaguar Electric Architecture (JEA) targets a WLTP range of up to 478 miles and up to 430 miles on the EPA cycle with a fast charge of up to 200 miles in as little as 15 minutes.
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