Jaguar Rebrand: Mistake or Genius? – Episode 2, The Controversy

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Welcome back to the Car Dealer Podcast.

I'm James Bagger, the editor-in-chief of Car Dealer magazine.

And in this special series, I'm investigating Jaguar's rebrand,

one of the most controversial relaunches the car industry has ever seen.

Jaguar unveiled a whole new direction in November 2024.

It sent the internet and the industry into a tailspin.

And it faced accusations it had gone woke.

The world waded in on the argument, even Donald Trump had a view.

But was all that noise the plan all along?

In the first episode of this series, I heard from journalists

who had been at that dramatic Jaguar event back in 2024.

In this episode, we'll be exploring that controversial branding with some experts.

I don't think they expected quite the extent of the reaction

from the general public around the world.

And I'll be talking to car dealers who've sold both new and new Jaguars

to hear what they thought of it and their customers.

The thing that delighted me most was that in terms of the value against spend,

it's possibly the best marketing campaign ever.

You actually looked at the demographics of our customers.

And it isn't unusual to see a box of tissues on the back shelf in a trill bit.

This is the story of Jaguar's rebrand, mistake or genius.

Episode two, The Controversy.

When Jaguar unveiled its new look, it told journalists that its press event,

it would be a complete reset.

There were new logos to get used to.

First, the name had changed to a mixture of upper and lower case letters.

A capital J, G and U were combined with lower case A's and an R.

This was like rocket fuel to the pedants out there, most journalists included.

The Growler was gone and in its place, a logo that combined the J and the R of Jaguar,

like two umbrella handles in a round circle.

And then there was that video.

It featured models in bright clothing, breaking moulds and deleting ordinary.

The YouTube version received tens of thousands of comments, mostly negative,

and caused a culture war.

Some people branded it as woke.

Others simply hated the fact it didn't even show the car.

John Evans is the host of the CMO Uncensored podcast.

He's been following Jaguar's story from the start,

and has interviewed members of Jaguar's team and been in the Type 00 himself.

But what I wanted to know was whether he thought this was all part of the plan right from the start.

Was this storm intended?

They intended to tease us, but they didn't expect the extent to which that tease went

viral globally.

I mean, they achieved billions of impressions.

As a topic, it's the single most engaged topic I've ever done.

Every single post I do on Jaguar goes viral.

So I think they wanted to tease us.

I don't think they expected quite the extent of the reaction from the general public around the world

to the extent that you could not, no amount of money could buy

what they've achieved through that initial teaser campaign.

There was a theory that was designed to provoke that reaction and get people talking.

From a marketing perspective, does that stack up?

To some extent it does.

I honestly think, I don't think it was intended to be as provocative as people interpreted it.

So if you think about Jaguar, they've spent many years, the last decade,

they've spent copying the German car manufacturers.

And this marks a massive change for them.

Almost going back to Jaguar's evolved that were, as they would describe it, a copy of nothing.

So they wanted to signal that this change was coming and it was going to be unlike anything you've seen.

So the intention was definitely to capture, grab our attention.

And it was designed intentionally two weeks before the concept car was launched as well.

So it was all part of the kind of comms.

I don't think they realized that the timing of it was very significant

because it was post the election of Trump.

You know, there was a bit, there was, there was pushback on kind of, you know,

woke if you use the kind of term, kind of advertising.

And so therefore the timing probably contributed to it.

You mentioned the word there and the campaign was labeled as woke pretty much almost immediately.

Do you think that helped spread the message or do you think it damaged the brand?

Well, it definitely helped spread the message.

Because I think with social media, it's never, it's never actually the story.

It's the story about the story.

So basically what happens in social media is if you do something very expected, no one talks about it.

If you do something unexpected, whether you like it or don't like it,

the reaction to it is what actually drives the clicks.

So I think we live in a rage-bait society where basically, you know,

we tend to react to things that we feel strongly about, whether that's negative or positive.

And therefore I think it was the reaction to the ad that became the story, not the ad itself.

By the way, you see this time and time again.

So Sidney Sweeney advertising American Eagle Jeans.

It wasn't actually that that many people were offended.

It's just that a handful of people reacted to that offense and the story became,

oh, these jeans are really controversial.

The same thing happened to Jaguar.

I don't think that many people are offended by that ad.

It's there's nothing really offensive about the ad.

But because there was because there was a reaction by some people,

the story became about the reaction rather than the ad itself.

As a marketing expert looking into the automotive industry,

what was your take on the on the relaunch?

I mean, do you think it was was a good thing to do?

And do you think it was a success?

I do, actually.

I mean, I know this is a very contrarian point of view.

And there are very few people, even in marketing, that would agree with me, right?

But I think from a positioning point of view, Jaguar sales have been declining for a decade,

almost to the, you know, they're almost extinct as a car brand.

So they had to do something radical.

And I think the advice to an already successful brand

where you're evolving the brand and keeping, you know,

keeping all your distinctive assets in place is one thing.

But a company in their state, I think has to be bolder.

And what I like about what they did is they didn't take inspiration

from the last 10 years of cars they've made.

They took inspiration from their founder and his belief that you should,

the Jaguar should be a copy of nothing.

And iconic ads like the, you know, iconic cars like the E type.

And I think that's that was the right thing to do.

Because actually there's no point Jaguar being another mid-market premium brand

that's doing the same thing as the German car manufacturers,

or even trying to compete with the Chinese at the low end of the market.

There's no point in doing that.

Their future is going to be higher end, luxury, premium, emotional,

cars that you want to talk about, cars that give you a feeling like no other.

And therefore to do that, they had to do something different.

So look, they say every rule has an exception.

And this is the exception to the rule.

So I personally think they're on to a winner.

And they're also playing the long game here.

By positioning the car up market, they're establishing themselves in a new market.

They're creating something very desirable.

And that will trickle down over many years to the other cars

that they launch off the back of this car.

You must have been watching it, the fallout from that campaign,

like I was, from a slightly different perspective.

Were you surprised at the vitriol that came off the back of that campaign?

Were you surprised at the backlash that Jaguar faced after they did that relaunch?

Well, the first thing to say actually is the backlash was even worse than even I realized.

So when I got to meet Rodin and the team at Jaguar,

almost everyone in that team has had personal death threats.

And I mean, I just think that is, you know, if you look at it objectively,

they've got a very cool concept car and they've got a slightly unusual teaser video.

And it is only a teaser video, right?

It's not like we're saving the planet or solving climate change or anything like that.

So people definitely took it way, way, way too seriously.

And so I think as a commentary on society,

it's pretty damning that people could take it that extreme.

So yes, I was surprised at the extent that people took it,

to the fact that some of the team had death threats I just think is extremely upsetting.

So yeah, I was surprised to that extent.

But I do think actually they've created a conversation about the car

that no amount of money or paid media could have achieved.

So I do think they will be the winners out of this

because they've now got the entire world anticipating what the actual car will look like.

And assuming as I believe the car is having driven in the car myself,

it's an exceptional car.

I do think the product itself is amazing.

And I think when people see the reality compared to the perception they had

of the teaser video and the concept launch,

once they see the real thing,

I think you'll see a lot of public opinion swinging back in their favor.

What I'm struggling to understand is quite why this campaign blew up in the way it did.

With your expertise, do you think it was because it was so different to what they did before?

And they were in some respects alienating their previous customer base completely.

And just saying, we're not going to sell to those 90% of customers anymore.

We're completely changing it.

Do you think that's what it was?

Yeah, it is actually.

I'd agree with your assessment there.

One of the most powerful emotions you can create is surprise.

So in terms of marketing,

marketing works if you feel good about a company or you're surprised or you feel rage.

So the worst thing you can do in any marketing is to leave people feeling nothing.

The biggest risk you take actually is to be ignored.

And most advertising and most campaigns are ignored.

So for every one Jaguar,

there's a thousand campaigns that we're not talking about between you and I today.

So what they did is the element of surprise, I think, was what made this work.

Because people were not expecting Jaguar with all their history,

older demographic of buyers, a recent legacy in terms of the kind of cars they've been producing.

No one expected to see something like this.

So I think the element of surprise was why this worked.

Then in terms of reality, you can't really predict what goes viral.

But as I said before, what happens is the story wasn't the story.

The story was how people reacted.

And so everyone started commenting on, do they like the cars?

They're not like the cars.

They like Teesville, not Teesville video.

And then that became a debate.

And as I don't know if I mentioned this earlier,

but the single best episode I've ever done on my podcast

was Rory Sutherland and Scott Galloway debating,

is Jaguar madness or is Jaguar genius?

And they both had different points of view.

Now, they're very clever marketing experts.

They're probably the two biggest marketing experts on the planet.

And they have different points of view.

So this isn't clear cut.

I mean, things go viral when they touch on a fault line

where people have violently opposing points of view.

So both Scott and Rory have very strongly held

different points of view and they're experts in marketing.

And that just shows you what a kind of powder keg,

the Jaguar team have created with this.

With your marketing hat on, was this marketing genius

or do you think it was a mistake?

I'm 100% marketing genius and I'll tell you for why.

So again, going back to what we talked about earlier,

the Jaguar brand had been on a constant decline

up until this point.

The I-PACE was the last decent car they did.

Their numbers were very small.

They're competing on a global scale.

They had to do something that got them noticed.

They also don't have the resources

of the large American or Chinese or German brands

in terms of advertising spend or reputation.

So they've got to be different.

And so I think that actually it was genius

because the evidence is the fact that we're talking about it.

The evidence is the anticipation for the launch.

Assuming that the product and having, as I said,

driven inside it, I believe it lives up to the expectation.

If the product delivers,

they have got an absolute hit on their hands.

So I honestly think there's no amount of money

they could have thrown at this

that would have got the reaction they got.

So sometimes you have to rip the rulebook up

and try something different and they did that.

And I think they'll be proved very right in the end.

Marketing genius then, or was it?

John and his colleagues have long debated the relaunch

and it's worth catching up with those episodes

on the CMO Uncensored podcast where they discuss it.

His was another viewpoint I found surprising

while I researched this story.

From the outside, the negative noise aimed at the brand

was deafening.

Perhaps it drowned out the real story here

that Jaguar was seemingly winning.

Nick Ead is a brand and PR guru

and I'd noticed he'd been quoted extensively

in the national newspapers following Jaguar's relaunch.

His comments at the time were less than positive.

My initial take on it was that it felt like

it was a bit of an April Fool's, to be honest,

because we have grown up, especially in the UK,

with this absolutely inherent heritage brand,

that it doesn't matter if you're a car fan or you're not,

you all knew what the Jaguar was

from whether that was watching a James Bond movie

or through to just seeing them in the street.

You all felt that sort of esteem,

something that was very glamorous,

something that felt very aspirational,

and then suddenly to see this almost AI design,

which felt so different from how you expected Jaguar to be,

including the logo, it just felt,

it almost felt very disingenuous of them as a brand

and so there was no connection on any shape or form.

Listen, I love design.

I love the fact that they were trying to be inclusive,

but this just felt so badly thought out.

It was labelled by a number of people as woke.

Do you think it was woke?

I don't particularly think it was woke.

I think it was trying to be inclusive,

which is a bit different.

I think it was trying to look at how they can appeal

to a different demographic,

look at the people who've got money,

who obviously can buy something like that,

and also appeal to a different generation as well,

because as we know, it's seen as a heritage brand,

it's been associated with the Royal Family,

and I think they're thinking,

well, actually, maybe we can make this a bit more Dubai,

give it sort of that bling vibe,

and there's lots of young millionaires out there

that might not want to have the old style,

but actually the new style might appeal to them.

Why do you think it created such a reaction?

It just didn't feel real.

The advertising, you really couldn't see what the vehicle was.

It felt more like an advert for a McNamarie screen

than it did for a car.

It felt like everything had been changed,

so you didn't feel like there was any part of it

that you could grab onto,

so for instance, the logo was completely different,

it looked like two umbrella handles.

It wasn't particularly glamorous,

it didn't feel very aspirational.

The colors of the cars were pretty ugly,

the interiors looked nice,

but everything looked like it was done by AI,

so nothing felt real, it didn't feel tangible,

and it felt like they concentrated more on the colorways

and the glamorous models supporting the campaign

than they did about the actual vehicle.

Have you ever seen a brand story like this

grow legs quite like this one did?

Not really, you know, this is so interesting

because it's like an anomaly,

but it's kind of like a how not to relaunch a brand,

because in many ways,

it did what everybody wants from a brand,

they want to cause controversy in some ways,

they want to get column inches,

they want everybody talking about it,

and this was on every single news channel,

every magazine, every paper talks about it,

so actually from a PR point of view,

you know, that's a really good thing,

we're all talking about the new Jaguar re-brand,

but the negative backlash it had and the debate it caused,

that's one of the issues,

and also the other fact of the matter is,

we never got to see the car.

We're now 18 months on from that relaunch,

do you think what happened then has damaged Jaguar at all?

Do you think they've had any impact off the back of that?

Well, I think people just don't,

I think they see it as a bit of a joke brand now, to be honest,

and I don't even saw in Paris,

the actor Barry Keown and also Jamie Dornan

were seen with a prototype of the car during fashion week,

and again, that's a way of them positioning it

as more of a fashion or luxury item in that sphere,

but again, it just didn't feel particularly genuine,

again, using celebrities to elevate something

to give it that sort of gravitas.

What would you have done?

Well, I would definitely have kept parts of its heritage,

listen, everything has to progress,

we see this with brands all the time,

you can't stay in the past if you're going to have a great future,

but I do think they should have looked at the logo,

especially I would have kept that,

because it's such a well-known inherent brand

that everybody knows about,

that everybody loves, it's got a lot of history,

so I would have kept that.

I think the design is interesting,

it's not particularly stylish in my view,

but some people might absolutely love it,

it's very boxy.

I think also the actual ad campaign

just didn't feel like it was a car advert,

it just felt like it was, like I said,

a mac and a roll of fashion or a fragrance advert,

and there was no story as well,

it's all about storytelling,

and you need to take consumers on a journey,

and they need to understand what happens,

so they have to be told actually,

this is the evolution of this brand,

this is where we've gone,

this is why we got to where we are today,

and it felt that there was none of that,

so literally we've kind of seen the doors shut

on a heritage brand that we associate

with movies and James Bond and royalty,

and then suddenly we've got this Uber modern,

almost tron-like vehicle that we don't really understand

why this has happened.

And what about those Jaguar owners from the past?

Do you think it's put them off?

Yeah, I can't imagine them thinking,

oh, I'm going to trade this in,

my old one in for this new one,

you know, it's a completely different vehicle in my eyes,

it's a completely different design,

it doesn't feel like it has the stature

that the older ones had,

so I suspect the old Jaguar drivers will be very happy

that that's the vehicle they've got,

which will be a heritage one for years,

but I don't think it's,

you see, I don't think it's going to make them

want to buy another car,

and that's what the biggest issue is,

and I know that Jaguar was saying that,

you know, they didn't see very many sales,

they had to change something,

you know, the old cars weren't being sold

as much as they used to be,

so this is why they did this huge rebrand,

but I think that it feels like it's a missed opportunity

to have a connect between the buyers,

the purchasers who've already had Jaguars

and the new potential customers

who are kind of confused about what they're actually buying.

People say to me that they think

this will be studied for years, this rebrand,

do you think that's the case?

Completely, I think this is going to be,

we'll see this in universities,

there'll be a task set for people to look at

how they can actually create a rebrand,

how they can actually, you know,

look at what they did right, what they did wrong,

and I definitely think it's going to be talked about

for many, many years to come.

Do you think in summary then,

this was a huge mistake or was it marketing genius?

I think it was a huge mistake,

and I think it has shown that nobody is talking about Jaguar

in a particularly favourable way,

nobody is sort of saying, oh my God,

you know, I love that advert, I love that,

I don't remember it maybe, but it's not about that,

it's actually about the vehicle, it's about the car,

it's about what it does, and at the moment

it feels like this was a huge own goal for them,

and I think they'll be really kicking themselves.

What the owners think about it all is an interesting point

and something that will make or break Jaguar's relaunch.

In the first episode, I heard from Wayne Scott

from the Jaguar Enthusiast Club.

He was incredibly excited about the new brand and the car.

But what about the dealers?

These are the people sitting in front of customers

talking to them day in and day out about Jaguar.

I wanted to know if they'd seen a drop-off in interest

or any negativity following the rebrand,

or had it in fact caused a surge in interest,

especially in the older models.

I spoke to Tim Atkinson.

He's been on the Cardiola podcast before

and runs the used Jaguar showroom Sports & Touring

in Andover, Hampshire.

He's a former airline pilot and turned to selling Jaguars

after an impressive aviation career.

When I looked at his website, it was full of F-types,

a car that's very different to the all-electric model

coming down the line.

What did he make of it all?

I think I found it very striking.

I think everyone did.

Very unexpected.

I actually quite liked it from the outset,

but then I am not a person whom you would find

in the middle of the chart of human traits in various ways.

And I love challenging art, for example.

So I thought the use of colour was very clever.

I thought it was immediately apparent, I should say,

that they had set out to push buttons very hard.

What do your customers think of the Jaguar rebrand?

Yeah, they were in a slightly different place.

A lot of them didn't like it.

A lot of them, I think, have quite a fierce loyalty to the brand,

and that would be going back considerable time.

I'm not going to talk about string back,

no, the driving gloves, maybe I will.

Some of them are that kind of people.

And yes, they were not open-minded.

And I think they also came at this importantly from another perspective,

which is not to do with the marketing campaign around the Type 00,

but is to do with what's obviously a very precipitate

and wrong decision to abandon internal combustion so early

and without a backup plan.

And I think that flavoured a lot of thinking amongst my customer base as well.

They felt let down more, perhaps, by that side of it,

and then that came out, that was expressed as dissatisfaction

in the marketing for the electric GT.

Were you surprised in the backlash that the Jaguar faced after that relaunch?

I wasn't surprised, did it know?

I found it, frankly, a little bit boring to me, but it was very predictable.

And it disappointed me partly from the sense that things have to move on.

I think a lot of people failed to bring any sense of humour to the party,

and it was watching fish being shot in a barrel, really.

The thing that delighted me most was that in terms of the value against spend,

it's possibly the best marketing campaign ever.

Why do you think Jaguar needed to relaunch in the first place?

I'm not sure. I thought they needed to to that degree.

They obviously, technology means that they have to move on into probably the EV space.

I still have a very fundamental feeling that, in fact, we've done another VHS and Betamax,

and hydrogen is a better power source for the long term, for a lot of reasons.

And I think the further and faster we move in the electric direction,

the less likely it is that hydrogen is able to evolve and to become the solution.

In terms of that movement away from internal combustion being reflected in a rebrand,

I guess if you're going to go for it, you're going to go for it perhaps,

and that's certainly what they did.

Yeah, but it was too early and maybe too committed.

What's demand like for Jaguars right now?

Are they easier to sell or harder to sell?

James, this is going to be viewed by lots and lots of car dealers, isn't it?

And no, it's terribly tough at the moment. I can't get them to shift at all.

Come on, okay, I'll be more open than that.

We're doing very well, but we're doing very well partly because of the blood,

sweat and tears that we've put into getting where we are, into being very well recognised

into having a tremendous brand within particularly the F-type community.

The work that we've done in social media to build a base now of tens of thousands of people

who are interacting with us, that's all paying huge dividends in all kinds of ways.

So now, and there's a marked upturn at the moment,

contrarially, to my expectations, looking at the geopolitical situation

and the economic situation that's falling out of that,

but my customers are pretty robust in that area and they're still buying.

Who is the typical Jaguar customer at the moment,

and do you think they'll be interested in a new one?

So two great questions. The typical Jaguar customer for me is

white middle-class British male 50 to 70 years of age, typically someone who is comfortably

wealthy, I don't mean necessarily multimillions, but certainly can buy a sports car without feeling

a pinch. We do hardly any finance deals, in fact I'm thinking yet again about just pulling out of

doing finance quite shortly. And then will they go for the electric GT? The most interesting thing

for me has been the reviews because we've started to see some really good thorough reviews come out

which reflect what I had been told by people I knew I know who drove that car early on.

We've got a couple of connections within JLR and I spoke to people and they told me they've driven

the car a little bit and it was fantastic. It was going to really surprise people with how brilliant

it was. And a bit of me thought, well you would say that, wouldn't you? And a bit of me thought,

well I really hope that's true. But when we've had reviews saying not only is it a great electric GT

but it's a Jaguar, I think that's a really important acknowledgement that they've got this right.

Do you think Jaguar's biggest problem is not the rebrand but the timing of this electric vehicle?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the timing of the announcement and the development

and bringing it to market. They went far too early on closing the IC production lines.

If someone walked into your showroom today and asked about Jaguar's future, what would you tell them?

I would say that the indications are very strong. The Range Rover brand which is behind the corporate

success is navigating difficult waters quite well. Jaguar have made a big mistake

in terms of moving away from IC too soon but it looks to me like the Type 00 is a phenomenal

modern electric GT car. It's a Jaguar. The price point as I understand it is going to be very,

very cleverly set and I expect it to be a phenomenal success and if they can then

bring the same expertise and the same methodology to bear on a range of cars around that,

I think we might all be very pleasantly surprised to see a British brand not without the old

pick up along the way but reinvent itself and achieve continued long-term success.

As the rebrand worked in your favour as someone selling used Jaguars, have you seen a boost in

popularity? I certainly haven't sensed the reverse of that. I was very fortunate to work for Stelios

Hajianu in the early days of EasyJet and Stelios was a massive believer in there being no such

things about publicity and all through this, all the offended reactions I've seen to the marketing

campaign and so forth, I've just thought if Stelios had done that at EasyJet he'd be laughing all

the way to the bank and I'm laughing alongside Jaguar. They've played a great joke on people.

They've suggested they might offer a kind of wishy-washy, namby-pamby,

super eco-friendly electric Grand Tourer and they've done the opposite. I think they're delivering

a very stylish product which I understand drives fabulously, gives you a real GT experience.

It's unbelievably powerful and fast and I think the whole thing has been,

in that respect, brilliantly done. I have no sense that it's put any of my customers off.

I think people will look back on this and they'll buy the Type 00 and I hope they'll do so with a

smile to their own reactions when the marketing campaign was launched.

Well that was quite surprising wasn't it? Tim is a man embedded in the brand,

selling used Jaguars to the type of customers that Jaguar doesn't seem to be all that

bothered about anymore, but yet even he loved the rebrand and the car. Former Jaguar franchise

E. Peter Smyth used to represent the brand in crew. He's one of the directors of the family-owned

Swansway Group and still represents Land Rover for JLR. I asked him why he thought Jaguar needed

to relaunch. Well we were Jaguar dealers up to two years ago and we're still a Jaguar approved

repairer and so we're still massive Jaguar fans but if you actually looked at the demographics

of our customers it isn't unusual to see a box of tissues on the back shelf and a trail bit.

They were quite old and I think it had become a little bit of an old staid type of brand.

Now that did change a little bit with the SUVs but I think people regarded a Jaguar as an old

person's car and I think it needed to be made sexy so I actually understand the direction of

which they've gone through. Controversial though it is and I know when they did the launch

everybody really, I mean it just went crazy media-wise but actually if you think about the

media coverage they got versus the spend that they made it was really rather impressive.

I don't believe they plan to sell cars in big volumes. I mean we're not a seller of the cars

anymore because Jaguar took the decision they wanted significantly less dealers. We're a dealer in

crew is not exactly the centre of the universe so you'd understand it once one in Manchester,

Birmingham obviously a few in London etc etc and I think that the car is totally different and

probably needed to be. What did you think when you saw that that relaunch when you saw the

that advert that had had so much reaction what was your thoughts as a former Jag dealer?

Well at first I thought well hang on a minute this is a little bit strange but then when I actually

thought about it I thought they were pushing the boundaries. You know in the 1970s I can remember

when punk rock came about and people were appalled about it but actually if you look back at it now

it was pivotal in moving pop music forward and I don't think that Jaguar have an alternative they

have to I think go significantly upmarket. The style of the car is controversial personally

I really like it but of course that's a personal taste. Would I go for it in the pinky purple

colour if it was me? Probably not but I remember that blue colour that they came out with personally

I thought that was stunning. Was it like when you used to sell Jaguar I mean they were a volume

premium player weren't they for quite some time they had a lot of SUVs they had a lot of saloons

what was it like to sell? Well the cars were great cars the problem was and I think it all

stemmed back to the fact that Jaguar have a white label finance company and when they brought out

you remember the XE that was meant to be a direct competitor with three series BMW and A4

and it never quite hit the mark because they couldn't get the residual value that BMW Finance

or Volkswagen Financial Services were able to put against the car so consequently I had a Jaguar

dealership in crew that was selling an XE I think at the time at £600 a month and then they could

walk into our crew Audi showroom and buy a similar priced car that was £350 a month I think if the

it did have been able to compete on a monthly payment then they might have had a viable proposition

but the volume then was never there because let's face it the screen price doesn't really matter

a hoot it's the residuals value set by the finance company which brings you down to a monthly

payment and just at this moment in time and you see it with the Chinese the sweet spot is £300

Do you think this is a huge gamble for Jaguar?

Not particularly no because if it fails they can always sell the Jaguar brand currently

so no I think it's a considered throw of the dice everything has a risk I hate to sound

uncontroversial which is unusual for me but sitting back in retrospect

I just hope that it is a massive success for them and the reason I say that is we are still

very proud and successful Land Rover dealers and obviously this is going to aid the profitability

of JLR they've had a bit of a tough time you know they've had a battering particularly with

with the hacking which went on which cost them an awful lot of money and they build I think they

build somewhere between five and six hundred thousand units a year so they're not a massive

volume player but if you you know you speak to people in Europe and you talk about the

the the big Range Rover it's still revered you know it still looks brilliant on the road

and even though you could say well I've had a Range Rover and it's had a few problems etc etc

it's amazing how people come keep coming back and buying them the brand is so incredibly strong

and hopefully what they're doing with Jaguar we'll we'll complement that

has been a regular commentator on Jaguar Land Rover for years he closely follows the highs and

lows of the brand and its parent company JLR he's written several pieces on the topic for

car dealer I caught up with him on an intermittent video call about why Jaguar needed to act

I wanted to understand the business case behind the British car makers huge decision

so Jaguar was simply not succeeding against premium competition it wasn't cutting it

against the likes of BMW being outsold four to one and essentially JLR were having to discount

the cars to shift them so they had to do something the brand clearly wasn't succeeding

and also its identity was pretty confused I mean you know the longer history went right back to

the beautiful E-Type the more recent cars was competent hardly inspired that kind of enthusiasm

so something had to be done for our business perspective David did Jaguar actually need

to do something this drastic I think it's an interesting question whether they need to do

something quite this drastic I my thought was that they would probably use Jaguar as a kind of

upmarket brand a kind of elite kind of sports brand on a range of other cars that they produce

bit like AMG for Mercedes what they instead did was come up with a completely different platform

when fully electric and are repositioning the brand completely in the luxury market

well or sub-luxury to try and take on the likes of Rolls Royce and Bentley which

it's never done before so it is very very risky I hope it works but it's not clear to me that it

will you mentioned that Jaguar is moving from this sort of volume brand to this low volume

high margin luxury luxury brand do you think that strategy makes economic sense I certainly think

the shift up market makes sense and indeed we're seeing that in general across the various

different jail or brands you know these days particularly Range Rovers can be very highly

specified and can you know get into well over a hundred thousand so I think in that sense yes

repositioning towards the kind of luxury end of things I think is probably the way to go

taking on Rolls Royce and Bentley I think is going to be difficult they don't seem to

be doing that head on what they seem to have identified is a sub-luxury kind of slot that

is between the top end of premium and the bottom end of luxury which they're going to go into first

and then if it's successful be interested to see where it goes from but certainly going up market

I think makes sense whether there is actually a luxury electric market is another point completely

though because what we're seeing is the likes of Bentley and Rolls Royce actually rowing back

from their electric offerings because of slow take-up how difficult is it for a car brand to

move from a premium to a luxury one in one step like this very difficult and in fact

shifting your brand up market it's a long-term business you know you look at say how are Audi

moved up over many many years that was a decades long commitment so for for Jaguar for kind of do

it in one giant reset I think is very very challenging I think what might be helpful for it

is that particularly amongst buyers in China people are actually less interested in the

brand but the technology so if they can get the product right they may be able to kind of loop

frog across other brands so but that really is ultimately going to depend on the product offering

and executing this really successfully what was wrong with Jaguar as a brand what why do you think

they needed to do this I think it had become very confused I think it was essentially trying to

compete with premium offerings from BMW, Audi, Mercedes but didn't have the quality to do that

ironically I think the luxury market is a bit more forgiving because in the premium market the

car has got to be perfect in the luxury market people are actually buying more of a bespoke

product which are they are co-designing and are willing to pay for and they're a bit more forgiving

about it not being absolutely kind of you know mechanically perfect as it were so in that sense

it might fit better but essentially Jaguar as a brand wasn't really cutting it and you could argue

as well that maybe some of the offerings particularly the kind of SUV offerings were starting to

cannibalize Land Rover and Range Rover markets potentially and that kind of raised the whole

brand identity issue for Jaguar and do you think that the timing of this might be the problem

yes I think I do very much so a time when demand for electric vehicles is growing but not growing

quickly enough other luxury makers are kind of taking their foot off the accelerator on the

transition Bentley for example I think one of the the Volkswagen platforms that it was

going to use has been cancelled and that there's another issue there in that Bentley can actually

access technology from VW and share it with other brands Jaguar is on its own and in fact it's a

bespoke platform for Jaguar so it's very expensive for them to do this and I'm not entirely sure

that the market there isn't really a luxury electric car market yet so they're going to have

to go out and create one so that's going to be very challenging do you think the market that they

can possibly make do you think it'll be big enough to sustain Jaguar so that I think that's

going to be the kind of 64 million dollar question really can they build a market that's big enough

for them and are they able to then expand that with different product offerings remember as well

Jerry McGovern has gone who was overseeing the product project early on and you know we don't

so a big question is whether they can continue without him and grow a market with some amazing

products that I think that ultimately is going to determine whether the brand survives or not

and there's no guarantee it will when Jaguar Landro we ran into all those really big problems with

the cyber attack last year and we were wondering how they're going to go forwards and where they

may save money my concern was whether they would ask the Jaguar brand they remain committed to it

for now but that ultimately depends on whether this breed brand is going to be successful or not

Coming up in the final episode of Jaguar's rebrand Mistake or Genius I'll be hearing

from Jaguar themselves in an exclusive interview Jaguar managing director Rodin Glover sits down

with me to discuss the relaunch in detail he talks about what it was like behind the scenes

when that campaign started to go viral what is that is that you know do you want to call that

woke is that is that this or that the other he reveals what it was like to be on the receiving

end of that media storm it was a tough time for them so I felt a responsibility to look at for

them I spent a responsibility to sort of defend what we're doing and to defend them and I ask him

whether things will change now Jerry McGovern has left JLR Jerry's the chief creative officer it was

the chief creative officer here in this organization and he clearly he was passionate Jaguar was

something he was deeply involved in but what it's important to say is you know as with any

with you know with anything in terms of particularly an automotive there's not one person

that accompanies this series I'll see you next time thanks for listening goodbye

Jaguar Rebrand: Mistake or Genius? – Episode 2, The Controversy

About this episode

Autotrader

buying signals

Jaguar

rebrand

complete reset

didn't even show the car

Type 00

teaser campaign

viral globally

concept car

E type

up market

relaunch

paid media

element of surprise

goes viral

how people reacted

heritage brand

bling vibe

couldn't see what the vehicle was

logo was completely different

aspirational

column inches

brand heritage

social media

marketing campaign

JLR

Land Rover

residuals value

residual value

BMW

highly specified

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