This previous couple of weeks, it wasn’t politics or U.S. Thanksgiving gatherings that dominated social media arguments.
As an alternative, it was a automotive producer.
That’s proper. Jaguar’s daring rebrand, together with a brand new brand, visible fashion, and all the things else, prompted the web to lose its collective thoughts.
There’s a saying, “If you happen to put 4 entrepreneurs in a room, you’ll get 5 opinions about one of the simplest ways to do one thing.” That cliché took middle stage as everyone appeared to have a place on Jaguar — the genius, stunning, strategic, horrible, woke, ridiculousness of the entire thing.
However was it any of these issues?
Or was Jaguar trolling to get everyone speaking about it?
In spite of everything, no less than a dozen international vehicle producers modified their brand within the final 5 years, and that listing included Jaguar. However the 2024 iteration of Jaguar appears to be the one one producing meme-worthy consideration.
Is that the one strategy to get folks noticing and speaking about your daring new look? Or is one thing else afoot?
We took these inquiries to CMI’s chief technique advisor, Robert Rose. Learn on or watch this video for his take:
Jaguar shakes up model like none different
Enjoyable reality: Jaguar was initially based over 100 years in the past because the Swallow Sidecar Co. It made sidecars for bikes.
Jaguar autos have been round since simply after World Struggle II and have all the time been related to British luxurious, element, and a deal with efficiency.
However Jaguar — the corporate — has finished one thing daring, and but it’s the least talked about factor in all this branding debate. Jaguar hit pause and reboot. The long-lasting model stopped making petrol-powered vehicles and shifted gears towards absolutely electrical luxurious fashions. It’s even taking a year-long manufacturing break for the reinvention.
Jaguar will focus gross sales on exclusivity, not quantity. In 2026, it is going to promote three electrical fashions, every priced over 100,000 British kilos (roughly $126,000) and supported by a extra selective supplier community.
Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s managing director, sums it up, “This can be a full reset. Jaguar is reworked to reclaim its originality and encourage a brand new era.”
On condition that highway map for the enterprise, how would you might have created the brand new model artistic, brand, and tone?
Effectively, Jaguar’s inner artistic workforce took all that to coronary heart and upended the standard vehicle model. In a delicate change, it flipped the jaguar within the brand to leap ahead as a substitute of backward.
However that wasn’t what created the collective poisonous freakout. The Copy Nothing campaign stirred a giant response. The advert didn’t present a automotive. I’ll remind you why — the all-electric luxurious line received’t debut till the 2026 mannequin 12 months. (This week, two weeks after the video launch, Jaguar shared a design vision concept that actually matches the brand new branding.)
The brand new model identification possesses a contemporary and colourful look. It illustrates what Jaguar intends to maneuver past — the well-known conservative colours of traditional British luxurious, reminiscent of Carmen Purple, Fuji White, Extremely Blue, and naturally, British Racing Inexperienced.
This change appeared to upset so many individuals. The social media posts got here quick and livid. Folks referred to as it an enormous mistake. Others contemplated who was going to get fired for the rebranding. Nonetheless others posted, calling it woke and ridiculous.
Why did folks appear so completely disturbed by Jaguar’s rebranding? In spite of everything, the Jaguar workforce had nothing to go on, effectively, besides 100 years of historical past and the context of its present enterprise technique.
The true lesson from this controversial artistic rebrand
As you may inform, I don’t hate the rebrand. I don’t adore it both. I acknowledge I’m not the goal marketplace for this new Jaguar.
What I do love is that Jaguar did the one factor trendy entrepreneurs all the time profess that each model ought to do. It did the factor that speaker after speaker at conferences speak about. It did the factor talked about years later because the motivation when the model wins awards.
Jaguar did one thing daring, artistic, exterior the field — and did it figuring out that individuals would both adore it or hate it. It takes me again to the well-known 1984 Apple advert, which examined because the worst commercial they’d ever seen for persuasiveness.
Now, I’m not saying Jaguar’s rebrand is one other 1984 Apple advert.
However Jaguar, as an organization, is pivoting hard. The whole enterprise reboot stems from a full-on self-realization that, to remain related for the subsequent 100 years, it should change. Its focus is stopping manufacturing for a 12 months, redesigning its product portfolio, and redeveloping its supplier community.
With the artistic rebrand, I think the one factor even remotely everlasting is the leaping jaguar as a badge and the brand itself. The cool, weirdly odd, diverse circus-like video is solely what’s taking place this month.
On this firm rebrand, Jaguar’s workforce has a whole lot of room to roam round and categorical themselves in a brand new means. That is the trendy branding technique.
Don’t field your self into legacy. Don’t restrict the place you may take the artistic concepts.
Jaguar even says it’s going to try this. It even calls this chapter “Copy Nothing,” and its web site meta description says merely: “Encourage like no different: Problem conference.”
The brilliance of this model marketing campaign — and the lesson from it — isn’t how a lot it appears to be like just like the previous. It’s how a lot room Jaguar has given itself to take the model into tomorrow. It might proceed to create bizarre moments that preserve folks speaking and appeal to new folks. Or it may well merely settle in.
And that harkens again to Apple’s brilliance. Its 1997 Think Different campaign featured iconoclasts from historical past all pondering otherwise and provided no product pictures. Apple wasn’t calling itself iconoclastic, nor saying that it was pondering otherwise. The marketing campaign tells the viewers that they’re the iconoclasts. Apple stated, “Right here’s to you — those who assume otherwise. We’re the one for you.”
What Jaguar is doing is all the things, whether or not it succeeds or not. Jaguar is just not saying it’s the inspiration. It’s saying Jaguar is the model for these impressed to problem conference.
And that leaves a whole lot of room to fly within the brand-creative sky.
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Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute
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