It’s early in the morning of December 2nd as I write this in Australia. Around 1pm in Miami on December 1st.
Right now in Miami, there’s a bunch of very nervous Jaguar executives awaiting a new vehicle reveal on Monday December 2nd that will either crown, or cut the throat of, the ambitious Jaguar re-brand launched a few weeks ago.
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks (completely understandable, given the US election results), Jaguar launched a teaser video and some pictures a few weeks ago. They show a re-branded Jaguar with an avant-garde eye towards the future.
Watch this:
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Sign O The Times
My guess is that Jaguar conceived this campaign a couple of years ago – these things take time, after all – when the world was a slightly more tolerant place. They probably didn’t know (but maybe should have suspected, at least) that there might be a renewed focus on culture wars as we got closer to a contentious US election – and their launch date. The pearl clutching leading up to November was extraordinary, which perhaps didn’t bode well for Jaguar.
Indeed, if you’ve been following the reactions since this Jaguar teaser launched a few weeks ago, you’ll know what’s happened. There’s been plenty of doom forecasting, a reasonable amount of outrage, a not-insignificant amount of MAGA-inspired vitriol (Faguar! fight! fight! fight!), and some small pockets of positivity.
Personally speaking, my immediate reaction was similar to some of yours, I’m sure. I was VERY surprised on first seeing it, somewhat sceptical, and a bit sad.
I wasn’t taken aback by the artistic nature of things: the colours, the androgyny. That doesn’t bother me at all. But….
That feeling of loss
What sparked my initial reaction was the stark contrast with Jaguar’s past.
I even wrote a note to a mate in the UK, expressing my condolences. He’s a multiple Jaguar owner and, I would say, part of that ‘best of British’ cohort. An appreciator of engineering, quality, history and tradition. A guy who bought his cars for a reason. He’s the type of guy Jaguar (and Saab) relied upon for sales for some time. I wrote to him because I figured that, like me, this campaign would have come as a shock. And perhaps it might lead to a departure. I think the jury’s still out on that one, which is fair enough.
Jaguar’s is a past that I feel invested in, too.
Jaguar was my first automotive love. My Dad gave me some XJ6 brochures when I was a kid and I used to pore over them like nothing else. I sat in class at school, drawing the XJ6 from every profile (and while I can’t draw to save my life, I got these perfect – in my memory, at least!). And long-suffering long-time readers of this site might remember that one of my most lusted after cars on my occasional ‘want’ lists is an XJ6 with a V8 transplant (sacre-bleu!!).
I finally got to indulge my Jag-lust in 2016, when I bought a beautiful XJR in Sweden:
So yes, I felt a pang of doubt when the Jaguar re-brand was launched. I’ll admit it.
The Case For The Reset
Personally speaking, I’ve given this whole episode a lot of thought, and my pangs have subsided.
My attitude now is best summed up by Richard Porter, long-time writer for Top Gear and The Grand Tour. You can hear Richard’s thoughts for yourself on the Smith n Sniff podcast.
I highly recommend you listen to that clip (and to that pod, in general. It’s brilliant.) But for those who didn’t….
As much as we might like the whole tradition-mahogany-leather-whiskey persona of Jags past, not enough people buy Jaguars.
The company made some legendary vehicles in the middle of the 20th century, and they’ve made some very good vehicles since, but they’ve also had some quality problems and they’ve never reached the sales heights of their German counterparts. Never ever. And they’ve rarely ever been profitable.
Jaguar – like Saab, I’d like to suggest – have constantly been victims of both their own successes and their small size. Their successes show the potential that’s there if they really had an opportunity, but their small size and a lack of willingness in others to invest in them means they’ve never really had the chance to show more. In Saab’s case, it was fatal.
Jaguar, it seems, has one more roll of the dice. The three options, as Porter puts it, are:
1. More of the same – why bother?
2. Shut the whole thing down – can you imagine the outcry? Saab fans have lived through this.
3. Try something radical. A hard reset – which is what we’ve got here.
So… What now?
Miami. December 2nd. The big reveal.
Jaguar will show their new electric concept in Miami and it’s said to bear a fair resemblance to the production car that’s due in 2026.
This is the car industry, and it all comes down to product in the end. Not advertising. Not teasers.
EVERYTHING will come down to the market reaction to that car. If they make it and people buy it, then the company lives. If people don’t buy it, the company dies, which is the trajectory they were probably on, anyway. And the one thing that Jaguar has learned over a long period of time is that their old clientele, on its own, can’t sustain it. They need a different, and much bigger audience.
The one thing nobody can deny is that there’s going to be a LOT more eyeballs on this vehicle launch than what there might have been otherwise. And from that measurement alone, the Jaguar re-brand has, so far, been a success.
Again, aping Porter, while this campaign might not be the way I’d have gone, I don’t mind it and I’m hopeful for Jaguar.
The world is better with Jaguar in it. The company has a history of bringing an element of class, elegance and refinement. They can be both cutting edge and traditional. They’ve torn up the rulebook more than once in the past. Now they’re doing it again. And just between you and me, I don’t think it’s as big a leap as what some are portraying right now between elegant and avant-garde.
I wish Jaguar well and will be watching with interest.
Always good to read your blog posts and insightful thoughts.
I do agree about the similarities between Jaguar and Saab.
I also agree that Jaguar is/was on the brink of collapse. So doing nothing was not an option.
I am not, however, convinced by the current strategy. Not just the branding and the timing relative to the car reveal, but also the idea of pushing even further upmarket into a luxury car price bracket. I don’t think they have the pedigree or recent form to justify that and lure people from their Aston’s, Ferraris and the like.
Time will tell. I hope they will survive and thrive. I expect them to fail miserably and be gone in five years.
That could well happen, Mark. But as was famously sang by some other Jag-owning Brits: If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on!
(Iron Maiden. Check out Nicko McBrain’s amazing Jag restomod if you’d like a treat).
I dont see how pushing the Jaaaag upmarket with higher prices will do any difference economically. Jaguar is already a comparativly expensive car and selling fewer at a higher cost seems to me like a dead end. They just dont have the luxury clout of a Ferrari, Aston or Bentley. If they are going full electric I think they need something like the Tesla model 3, affordable to more people but with Jag DNA exterior and with an interior thats pleasant to be in, not a sterile dentist waiting room.
All fair points, mate. Can’t wait to see what the interior looks like. Electric interiors bore me to tears 99% of the time. Touchscreens being so much cheaper than bespoke buttons and other hardware is a curse.
At Saab we didn’t reach high enough … trapped by the conservative nature of the Swedes and the penny pinchers at GM. Now Jaguar appears to be reaching too far (maybe that opinion comes from my own conservative bias from being associated with Saab for so long!), but at least their overlords are apparently on board with it. We shall see if it works. The preview images do seem out of step with the pendulum swing in the culture wars of late. These social media-fueled times, where it seems everyone is an expert and every criticism goes viral, are tough enough to navigate, even without attempting a thorough rebranding.
Here’s hoping the target audience is actually tuning in, DLD. I think there’s a reasonable chance they are, and that many of them don’t frequent the social channels throwing all the fits right now. Not en masse, at least.
Your thoughtful missive, political angst notwithstanding, is well taken, Mr Wade. What a world we live in. I never thought it fair that the wider automotive press should castigate Jaguar for years of elegant evolution (series III, Xj40, X300, etc) only to lavish praise upon Porsche for exactly that quality in its 911s. An XJ for all its essential Jag qualities / DNA deserved no less consideration than the Neunelfer. Jaguar’s fatal error was chasing its competition (Audi in particular) up dead end streets rather than refocusing on the essential attributes of what made a Jag a Jag. The XF and XJs in the last decade were unpretty also-rans that did nothing well enough. The brief shining moment: the F-Type was a sensation for a time. Why? For being an actual Jag of course. But now, the I-Pace represents a desperate Jaguar that succumbed to the Borg (see: Waymo taxis). It’s already over. The Queen is dead. God save the Queen.
Hey Gunnar. Good to hear from you.
The political angst is interesting as it’s both central and a sideshow. I’m a firm believer that the reaction wouldn’t have been anywhere near as vitriolic in calmer times. And that would have given the car a better chance of cutting through for what it is. It’ll face a somewhat more uphill battle because of that.
And yet the culture issue is still a sideshow because the car is what matters for the future of the company.
I had one brief F-Type experience. If I wasn’t such a coward I’d have sold a kidney there and then. It was beautiful in every way.
This rebranding/reset campaign reminds me of when Cadillac made a major design shift in the early 2000s. The image of Cadillac prior to that had been the grandpa-marketed land yacht. I still don’t care much for the new Caddy design but that’s a me thing. The North American market has clearly said yes to the new Cadillac and they are now everywhere and is now obviously a very profitable arm of GM.
We’ve got a good notion of what won’t work for Jaguar.
A – Retro
We’ve seen this during the Ford years and although there were a few high points like the X350 and X100, pretty much all the people who’d ever wanted a Jag because they’d once liked what they used to look like bought one and moved on.
B – Blandly Luxurious
Look at the X351. It was, quite literally, a very nice amorphous blob that sold poorly.
C – Blandly Bland
And then we get to the confusing and visually milquetoast crossovers Jaguar is trying to sell now. Confusing because there’s nothing to really tell a the various Paces apart. And milquetoast because I’m not sure there are any less distinctive vehicles currently being offered (at least outside China).
So, what will work for Jaguar? I believe this new concept will be the first car on the Panthera platform. As such, it needs to deliver a little of everything for JLR…styling that is uniquely Jaguar without being slavishly derivative…that same styling needs to be polarizing, not everyone’s cuppa, but someone’s flavor…and it’ll need to be both exciting and luxurious, in equal measure. If these goals are all met, I think Jaguar have a chance. If they miss even one, we’re looking at the end of Jaguar.
It’s really the same thing that sank Saab. If you’re small, you can’t succeed with a good car that’s priced well and which has inoffensive styling. You have to be exceptional at something and be styled in a way that you’re some segment of the population’s FIRST CHOICE. The 2nd gen 9-3 was a good car with mediocre performance and anonymous styling. Jason’s 3rd gen 9-3 could possibly have been the polarizing option that created buzz, be we all know what happened to that. Maybe Jaguar will survive by polarizing?