Branding experts have reacted with confusion and bafflement at Jaguar’s new rebrand – which has shed the iconic ‘growler’ badge amidst a technicolour marketing push that doesn’t feature any cars.
The British sports car marque has been fiercely criticised over its most dramatic rebrand in decades, which swaps the roaring big cat badge for a roundel containing two letter ‘J’s and swaps the imposing font of the logo for a softer typeface.
It comes as Jaguar puts its entire range out to pasture and pauses new car sales for an entire year as it develops its entirely new range of all-electric vehicles, to go on sale from 2025 with a much younger audience in mind than in the past.
The redesign attracted fierce criticism. Californian designer Joseph Alessio said it would be ‘taught in schools as how not to do a rebrand,’ while another designer labelled it ‘one of the most destructive marketing moves ever attempted.’
And public relations experts have told MailOnline they are stumped by the firm’s decisions – from the ‘vandalism’ of the company’s iconic logo to the apparent casting off of decades of motoring heritage to attract new buyers.
Brand and culture expert Nick Ede says he was ‘baffled’ by the marketing push – which featured precisely no cars – while Oli Garnett, co-founder of creative design agency Something Familiar, called the rebrand a ‘dog’s dinner’.
Jaguar, meanwhile, has doubled down on the rebrand, sending sassy and saccharine replies to detractors on social media who question the wisdom of moving away from the kind of thinking that birthed iconic vehicles such as the E-Type.
Some owners have even threatened to end their car deals early to, in the words of one social media user, ‘avoid the humiliation of being seen in one again’.
Jaguar’s new rebrand has attracted accusations the company has gone ‘woke’ – as it launched the new look with an advert featuring no cars
The advert features boldly dressed fashion models in bright primary colours alongside slogans such as ‘break moulds’ and ‘create exuberant’
This is the new Jaguar logo – a roundel made up of the letter ‘J’ that looks the same both ways up
The classic Jaguar ‘growler’ logo has been ditched as the car firm reinvents itself to appeal to a younger audience of car buyers
The rebrand was unveiled yesterday with a video showing exuberant models walking through an alien landscape to a techno music soundtrack. It ended with the slogan: ‘Copy nothing’, inspired by a slogan uttered by Jag’s founder, Sir William Lyons.
Mr Garnett said: ‘It’s a real shame because they had an opportunity, with all their history, and they’ve opted to rebrand it as a sort of, Gen Z-type operation.
‘They’re losing the legacy of the brand. Just because it’s an electric brand now doesn’t mean you can’t still be modern, and sharp, and fast and aggressive.
‘This rebrand feels like they’ve swapped the growling jaguar for a confused house cat pawing at a Roomba.’
Some online commentators have described the rebrand as ‘vandalism’. Asked if he recognised that description, Garnett replied: ‘I would agree with that.
‘All of their iconic brand strategy they worked hard to build, a trusted legacy of luxury, something quintessentially British… I would agree.’
Mr Ede, founder of PR firm East of Eden, said he had been ‘baffled’ watching the video as it went out.
‘The issue with this is there is such a massive disconnect with the British heritage of Jaguar,’ he said.
‘You could be watching a fast fashion advert or an advert for a paint brand or makeup. It doesn’t have anything to do with a car.
‘You don’t get the money shot at the end. That’s the biggest problem here – it hasn’t really built up any anticipation. It has flopped in such a massive way that now you think, does anyone care? Do we want to see this car now?
‘It could have been absolutely amazing… but this teaser has flopped immediately and you can see most people on social media asking: “What is this, why am I looking at it, what does this mean?”‘
Jaguar has long been associated with the likes of Inspector Morse (as played by John Thaw, above) – rarely seen without his iconic Mk2
The Jaguar E-Type – a stone-cold design classic (left) – and its spiritual successor the F-Type (right) are now consigned to the past
Instead, Jaguars will look something like this in the near future. This is a prototype of its first all-electric car – a four-door saloon currently hidden behind a camouflage paint job
The new Jaguar logo features largely lower case letters – save for a single capitalised ‘G’ – in what the company is calling a ‘complete reset’
It has wiped its social media presence clean – with no suggestion at all on its Instagram that it is a car company
As part of the relaunch, Jaguar has scrubbed its social media profiles of old images of sports cars and its history as a racing marque. Those who click on its social media profiles see only the ‘copy nothing’ slogan, and an image featuring the models.
Mayah Riaz, a celebrity PR and expert on brands, said someone had been ‘let loose’ on the brand, with mixed results.
She said: ‘If I didn’t know I was clicking on a Jaguar advert, I would’ve thought it was some fashion brand. There are zero cars. I just don’t know what it’s getting at.
‘That badge has been on cars for decades and now it’s like they’ve lost their teeth.
‘It’s too much of a change too quickly – they’ve missed a few rebrands in between. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall with the agencies saying, “this is what we want to do”.’
Jaguar’s managing director Rawdon Glover told This is Money yesterday that he expects only 15 per cent of customers to be previous Jag owners.
But both Ede and Riaz think the marketing has lunged too violently away from Jaguar’s renowned history – shedding its association with motorsport, Inspector Morse and suave gentleman drivers in favour of a progressive, diverse new market.
It’s not like the Jag adverts of old, such as the (now banned) video featuring Tom Hiddleston, Sir Ben Kingsley and Mark Strong purring that villains ‘all drive Jaguars’, soundtracked to the roar of an F-Type coupe overtaking a London bus.
It’s not as if Jaguar hasn’t rebranded before. Founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922, it became SS Cars in 1934 before the Jaguar name was adopted in 1945 to avoid any association with the SS Nazi paramilitary group.
The ‘leaping’ Jaguar logo was introduced as a bonnet ornament the same year – and stayed on cars for 60 years until EU safety regulations all but killed them off.
And in 1957, the legendary ‘growler’ logo was introduced, featuring a roaring big cat at the centre of a red badge. Jaguar’s logo then evolved in 1982 to feature the name in a regal font with the animal leaping to the left and remained that way for 42 years.
The redesign sees the ‘growler’ dropped and the ‘leaping’ cat abandoned from the logo, relegated to a ‘makers mark’ that also sees it turned to face the right for the first time – as a symbol the company is ‘always leaping forward’.
The classic Jaguar ‘leaper’ bonnet ornament that inspired the decades-old logo. These were scrapped in 2005 – and are now almost gone completely from the firm’s branding
The ‘leaper’ cat logo still exists as a ‘maker’s mark’ – but has been reversed to jump to the right as a sign the company is ‘always leaping forward’
Jaguar has been winding down its model range – with cars such as the F-Pace SUV (above) now relegated to the history books
PR and brand expert Mayah Riaz says the rebrand is ‘too much’ and would ‘alienate the core customer base’
Gone is the classic all-caps ‘JAGUAR’ font that recalled stateliness and even a hint of menace. In its place, a jumble of letters that appears to read ‘JaGuar’ and a roundel badge that reads ‘J’ both ways.
Car fans have reacted angrily to the rebrand, saying it lacks claws – branding it ‘woke‘ and ‘unhinged’.
‘Congratulations,’ weighed in one commenter on Jaguar’s Instagram. ‘You’ve killed a British icon.’
It is all, in Ms Riaz’s words, ‘too much’. She added: ‘There’s a lot of emotional touchpoints with Jaguar – British craftsmanship, excellence, luxury. This is alienating the core customer base.
‘We have an association with Jaguar, when we see that logo with the teeth-bearing cat. They’re going for the future but their customers aren’t there yet.’
Branding the rebrand launch a ‘damp squib’, Mr Ede continued: ‘Why is it so important for Jaguar to strip back everything from its past, which made it into the brand that it is today, just to start again?
‘As a brand you’ve got to, not modernise, but change and evolve. But it’s all in the storytelling – and the story they’re telling in this advert tells us nothing.’
It described its new philosophy as embracing ‘s bold designs, unexpected and original thinking’ that will ‘command attention through fearless creativity’. It has certainly done that.
Gerry McGovern, the car firm’s design boss, said yesterday he wanted to create a ‘jaw-dropping’ redesign that will ‘shock, surprise and polarise’.
‘It will make you feel uncomfortable. That’s fine. The world is not standing still,’ he said at a launch event yesterday.
And as Jaguar sends saccharine responses to detractors on social media, Mr Ede has questioned the wisdom of potentially putting off future customers.
Gerry McGovern, Jaguar’s chief creative officer, is unapologetic over the redesign. He said yesterday: ‘It will make you feel uncomfortable. That’s fine’
Jaguar has given short shrift to the outrage on social media – and even invited Elon Musk, boss of direct rival Tesla, to the launch event for its new concept car in Miami
‘I feel like Jaguar don’t know where they are. They’re talking about alienating literally all their customers, which is a really bad thing to do, especially with a British heritage brand.
‘Others like Barbour, they keep their heritage in the background because it’s important to them, it gives them authenticity and gravitas.
‘Whereas Jaguar seems to be saying, “no, no, we don’t care about anyone who has bought one of our cars, It’s all about the future now”.
‘It feels like they’re almost embarrassed by it, and that to me is a huge faux pas because it feels like they should be playing on the fact they have been around for 100 years.
‘Before, when somebody picked you up in a Jag, it felt fantastic, classy, glamorous.
‘Instead, we’re seeing these fabulous models wearing brilliant designs but it feels like a complete disconnect… stripping away all of their heritage and making a massive gamble on the future. It’s just confusing.’
The radical look is part of Jaguar’s complete reimagination as it races ahead of the 2030 deadline for car firms to stop selling petrol and diesel cars in the UK.
Jaguar is set to unveil a new car – not a production model, but a ‘design’ concept showing off how its new cars will look – in Miami on December 2.
But Mr Ede expects the firm to jump the gun and release images early to temper the furious reaction to the rebrand online – so people remember that Jaguar is, after all, a car company.
On a base level, there’s no denying people are talking about Jaguar more than they have in years. The firm has seen sales fall dramatically as its range has shrunk; time will tell if it has the renaissance it is hoping for.
Mr Ede said: ‘It’s getting headlines and they’re getting everywhere. No matter what, we’re all talking about Jaguar. Sometimes, this can work in your favour.’
Ms Riaz added: ‘Jaguar are being very ambitious. Maybe they knew what they were doing. But I think it’s a shame because it’s losing their history, the legacy of the brand. It’s too much.
‘People say there’s no such thing as bad publicity but this will be a test of that.’
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