Has JAGUAR Committed Brand Suicide?

Doug Downs (00:06):

Two ambitious endeavours separated by decades, but united in their pursuit of being different. It was November, 1968 and the Beatles, the world's most famous band, released the white album. It was a masterpiece of variety, rock, folk blues, but nestled within the record was a track that puzzled and frustrated even their most devoted fans. Revolution Number nine, A sound experiment by John Lennon wasn't a song in the traditional sense. It was an eight minute and 22 second collage of spoken words, loops and chaotic noise punctuated by the haunting repetition of one phrase, number nine, number nine. Number nine. Lenin believed he was creating art, a sonic exploration of revolution in its purest form. Critics however, were baffled while a few praised Its daring Nature and avant-garde triumph. They said most listeners found it unlistenable, a pretentious indulgence that belonged nowhere near a Beatles record. Paul McCartney himself wasn't exactly a cheerleader for the track.

(01:15):

Still, Lenin stood by his work claiming it was for the thinkers, not the crowd pleasers artistic effort. Sure, a good listen. Not in this lifetime. Let's be real. Revolution number nine remains infamous. An example of how even geniuses like John Lennon sometimes misstep. Fast forward to November 19th, 2024, Jaguar, or if you're British, Jaguar, the iconic British automaker with over a century of proud history decided to take a bold turn. The company has faced significant struggles in recent years, declining sales, a pause on car production in the uk, and a looming transition to an all electric lineup by 2025. That's a challenging road time for a rebrand. Okay, but rather than showcasing their legendary engineering or painting an inspiring picture of a sustainable future, Jaguar chose, well, let's just say the road less traveled. Their grand rebranding launched with a sleek 32nd video. No cars, no roaring engines. Instead, models in futuristic outfits, strutted their stuff, doing their best. Zoolander impersonations, pouts poses, and blue steel galore.

Christine Taylor (02:29):

What would you say your trademark is if you have one?

Ben Stiller (02:31):

Well, I guess the look I'm best known for is Blue Steel

Christine Taylor (02:35):

What's that look like? It's impressive.

Ben Stiller (02:42):

And then there's Ferrari and the Tegra. The Tegu is a lot softer. It's a little bit more of a catalog. Look, I use it for footwear sometimes. Can I see that?

Doug Downs (02:52):

Social media users pounce like a cat. Within days, the campaign racked up over 90 million views and spawned thousands of memes. Even Elon Musk equipped do you sell cars? Critics are calling it brand suicide, A spectacular misfire that will erase years of heritage in favor of a glossy empty image. Jaguar had the chance to champion its engineering prowess to roar like the big cat of old. Instead, it meow a faint high fashion new and the world is laughing. So there you have it, two bold moves separated by time. One, a musical revolution that left many scratching their heads. The other a rebranding revolution proving, no, not all cats always land on their feet today on stories and strategies. A closer look at how Jaguar's leap onto the catwalk was really more of a stumble in that perhaps not all revolutions are meant to succeed. My name is Doug Downs, my guest this week. Tyler Chisholm, joining today from Calgary. Hey Tyler.

Tyler Chisholm (04:08):

Hey Doug. What's happening man?

Doug Downs (04:10):

Well, it's winter in Calgary because you and I are both there, so no Jaguars on the roads right now. How much snow did you get in your area?

Tyler Chisholm (04:17):

Oh, I was away on Saturday, so my wife was shoveling and sounded like quite a bit foot, two feet, foot and a half. I don't know. It was rough. It was

Doug Downs (04:25):

Rough. Two feet at least up to my waist. No, not that short. Not a

Tyler Chisholm (04:30):

Gnome. Well, you know what? I wouldn't make that joke, Doug, but you made it since you brought it up.

Doug Downs (04:36):

It was low hanging fruit, so to speak.

Tyler Chisholm (04:38):

Literally. I bet your fruit was silly.

Doug Downs (04:40):

Tyler, you're the co-founder and CEO of Clear Clear Motive Marketing, marketing firm. It's

Tyler Chisholm (04:47):

A mouthful, my friends

Doug Downs (04:48):

Clients globally. It's a mouthful around the world. In 2012, you were recognized as one of Avenue's top 40 under 40. Great to have you back on the podcast.

Tyler Chisholm (04:57):

Good to be here. Thanks for the invite, man.

Doug Downs (04:59):

You and I chatted about this Jaar rebranding right after it came out. I was, oh my God, the cat is dead. And you were thoughtful. You weren't saying no to that. You weren't saying yes to that. You said, let me think on this. They also have the car unveiling coming up still.

Tyler Chisholm (05:18):

Yeah, December. When is that? December 2nd.

Doug Downs (05:20):

Something like that, right? December 2nd, December 3rd. But okay, where are you here with this? Because to me this is brand suicide. It's over. It's worse than new Coke. Where are you at?

Tyler Chisholm (05:31):

Yeah, fair enough. But Coke did survive, right? They did. Coke did survive. I'm still going to reserve a little bit of my position based on the fact that we haven't seen the car yet, so they still have a chance to redeem itself because a week ago, you and I were not talking about Jaguar. Now we are. But is there any such thing as bad pr? Well, maybe in this case there is. So I'm a little bit reserved, but I'm leaning onto the negative side. I did a lot of digging on the weekend and a lot of people that I respect and their perspectives, I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. And as a marketer, I've seen many creative ideas get killed on the vine before they ever see the light of day. And then sometimes there's some that should have been, because there's the old David Ogilvy quote. It's not only that the worst thing that marketing can't do is not work. It can actually hurt you. And this might be one of those dialogues that we're about to have, is this like maybe it didn't do any good, but did it do some irreparable damage?

Doug Downs (06:21):

You mentioned you've seen creative ideas fall dead on the floor. Please tell me what on earth is creative about this concept? This let's get a bunch of models. Some clearly intended to be androgynous, putting on their best blue face, blue steel face.

Tyler Chisholm (06:38):

Yep. Yeah, very good reference for

Doug Downs (06:39):

The nineties called Bill Clinton is still the president. There's copy, nothing. They copied everything here. There's nothing unique.

Tyler Chisholm (06:49):

We had Zoolander in there, you had some Annie Lennox in there and her face with the rhythm. There's a lot of things that reference, and when I say creative ideas, lemme clarify that. I've been in a lot of boardrooms where there's an idea of a company goes, Hey, we want to do something different.

(07:02):

And then the creative team shows up and gives them something different and they're like, oh, they're kind of fearful. They're like, I don't want to go forward. It's not comfortable. Let's make it different, but let's keep adjusting it to it becomes more what we were used to or what our audience is used to or what was safe. So when I say creative idea, oftentimes it's the willingness to do something different. Doesn't always mean it's a good idea, but so many companies say they want to show up differently and then they don't and it dies. So I want to give them a little bit of props for that, but that might be very hollow praise when it landed so poorly and maybe they should have harken back to some of their heritage and some of what make Jaguar the cool brand. I say cool in quotes that it was was so much about that heritage and they burned that to the ground with this ad campaign.

Doug Downs (07:46):

Did you see anything creative in the campaign? So two pieces. One is the video of course, that everybody's talking about. The other is the refresh to the Jaguar logo. Is there anything creative in there? Because my point is they copied everything. There is absolutely nothing creative here whatsoever.

Tyler Chisholm (08:07):

How do you find a creative Doug in this country before? Has to be Brett New, has never been done before. There's an argument that there isn't a lot that hasn't been done before. Fair enough. It up there, seven movie plots, plots in all of Hollywood, right? There is the ultimate story arc, right? We'll get Joseph Campbell in here and we'll walk us through. He would have been able to walk us through exactly how every plot will follow along. It was woke for the sake of woke. It was different sometimes for the sake of different, it was sacrificial to anyone who had any heritage or connection to the brand. So you're right, it copied other things, but what it didn't copy were elements that the Jaguar core audience was possibly used to. So to your argument or to your point, it copied a lot of things that were not connected to the brand at all, which makes it even more

Doug Downs (08:48):

Detrimental. What were they trying to achieve? I know business has been down, they've had to refresh stock price and Jaguar doesn't trade on its own. It trades under its parent company. I think it's called Tata.

Tyler Chisholm (09:01):

Yeah, Tata Motors.

Doug Downs (09:02):

Yeah, Tata Motors. Tata Motors.

Tyler Chisholm (09:04):

Who else? Who owns Land Rover?

Doug Downs (09:05):

Right. Okay, so I can't just look at the stock price and draw a direct conclusion from that, but what were they trying to do? Let's pretend that the big cats at Jaguar actually have a big brain and we're trying to do something deliberate. What was that?

Tyler Chisholm (09:21):

Well, I think they actually want to break the trend and they want to actually come out. It's not what they're trying to do, it's what they're about to do. And if you read some of the information around, they're not going to release. They had their biggest year in 2017, which was the highest volume year for Jaguar sales in the history of the brand. In 2025, they're going to release zero cars and they hope, and I think it was some of the articles, even you and I were lobbing back and forth that they might retain 10% of who was their existing audience. So if you think about this as a startup and as what's the hardest things that startups do earn trust and create connection and affinity to their brands, they took a whole lot of brand affinity and they said, we don't care about that anymore.

(09:56):

We believe the future is with a brand new audience that actually is not going to relate at all to our old audience. And I think some of the stats I read, the core audience specifically for an automaker for a new vehicle is still 60 to 70% of who's driving their vehicles now. And so they said, no, we don't care about that. We're going to throw that all out the window. We're going to start over. That's why I reserved the right to say it is very bold, but they believe that there's nothing left to salvage or it's not worth it. That if I always joke, I'll ask companies, if everything is as successful, if you want it to be three years from now, what does it look like? I'm assuming in the room they said, you know what if we just come up with a refresh?

(10:32):

Do you remember back, I think 50 and 16 when they came out with the F type, they came out with the pace, their SUV, which I still see a lot of them on the road. All of a sudden I had a whole bunch of younger friends buying jaguars because they were sub hundred grand. They were accessible, but you still had a little bit of cache with the brand. Did they erode that by making a little bit more of a cheaper accessible car back then? I don't know statistically, but they said, Hey, we don't care about that audience anymore. We want to go for a new upper class, ultra wealthy, ultra young, young values based purchase with a younger audience and we don't think a heritage will get it there. So let's blow it up. Let's start over. And when we hit the market with mass distribution of their models in, I forget what they said, the predictions in 2026, how many models they're going to put out there, which from a luxury brand also breaks that model because a little bit of scarcity makes things a little bit more

Doug Downs (11:22):

Want.

Tyler Chisholm (11:23):

They're going from nothing to like, we're going to flood the market with all of these amazing cars that are now going to be twice the price of any of our cars. Now that's like a brand new startup that was willing to throw away anything that was heritage based for a new audience that is still untested, unproven, and that's the big swing of the stick. That's risky right now for these guys

Doug Downs (11:41):

And they're in a tough spot because the initial reaction has been so poor. Just quantifying that

(11:47):

Media intelligence firm. Tru Scope shows the rebrand of 40.8% mixed sentiments on the rebrand with users questioning the lack of cars in Jaguar's new advertisement despite being a luxury vehicle company. Truco also identified 37.5% neutral sentiments with some wondering about the direction of the brand's identity. 20.8% were negative sentiments with users expressing frustration toward the brand, some stating that the advertisement seemed too woke in their words and that it has nothing to do with cars. 0.9% were positive sentiments less than 1% focused on the more inclusive designs. Creative thinking featured in the ad. How should JR respond to such polarizing feedback? They've doubled down in social media basically saying, well, we look forward to your response December 2nd, December 3rd when we unveil the vehicle short of live Jaguars coming out and devouring the models used in the video ad. I don't know that there's anything that could switch me to be more on side with the brand. That feels like a

Tyler Chisholm (13:05):

Mad TV skit right there. I think that

Doug Downs (13:06):

Or

Tyler Chisholm (13:08):

Weird Twilight Zone episode from the perspective of they've made a decision, they're thinking 3, 4, 5 years out when it comes to model design models that are in production. What else could they do but say just wait and see. I do appreciate the fact that they're holding the line a little bit

(13:23):

And they really have kind of a TSN turning point moment on December 2nd to come up with a product to be like, oh wow, okay, that is different. That is unique. I'm actually really curious about that. Again, if they can take this amount of fervor and this amount of buzz and turn it into and actually land it even in that first, but then we still follow up with the problem is I can't buy that car now, which then kind of fits into a little bit of the luxury brand playbook of scarcity. They want it, they can't get it. They're going to want it even more If that product for some reason comes out and it's just too weird, which would be more consistent with the ad campaign than maybe what is known as Jaguar. I think that's when we might have a follow-up episode of when we do have the actual wake and we actually then put the tombstone up and I'm still giving them that benefit of the doubt of will that younger audience see whatever their new product is and go, wow, I want that. I'm excited about it. I'm willing to buy into that promise, that lifestyle, that ideal, and now I'm willing to wait for another year for this cool vehicle that is now going to be mass produced, which now makes it less luxury. It's full of contradictions.

Doug Downs (14:26):

Fair enough. They've conjured up a lot of emotion. Obviously there it reads as neutral feedback, but it's negative feedback that just in and of itself, your initial salvo being to piss people off and to piss off the people that believe or believed in your brand. That in and of itself feels like a strategic misstep to me. I hear what you're, if you can take the anger and the disappointment and suddenly with some magical unveiling, which let's Occam's razor, it's not going to be that great. It's like the peg was that we had all this hype over the segue, the

Tyler Chisholm (15:08):

Segue, the

Doug Downs (15:09):

Segue. We had all this biggest flock and then it unveiled, and even Diane Sawyer and a BBC News said, is that it? It's not going to be that

Tyler Chisholm (15:17):

Great. Yeah, fair enough.

Doug Downs (15:18):

There's why people like that so bad. That in and of itself feels like a mistake. They've already lost.

Tyler Chisholm (15:23):

It's a bit tone deaf. I'd be curious what kind of focus group testing they ran, what kind of initial feedback. It's a great thing. I made a point yesterday to go and be, I don't think you and I are the target audience, Doug, I'm going to be bold and say that two old ad guys

Doug Downs (15:39):

Around my price range. They might be in yours, but

Tyler Chisholm (15:41):

Yeah, well I am just talking more from the demographic and who we represent as a buying group. So I went and watched a bunch of everything I could find on YouTube that were interviewing younger individuals. There was one I stumbled on. He goes, I own a Jaguar right now. But he goes, I own a Jaguar and some of my friends own Jaguars, and this was probably a mid thirties successful techie kind of human being. He goes, because we wanted that heritage, we wanted that degree of luxury. We wanted British brand. Yes, this did not speak to me at all. And he joked and then one of the interviewers said, how much are they selling a lifestyle? He goes, I'm wearing Jaguar cologne right now. He literally was so honest about it.

(16:15):

He goes, I don't think unless they blow me away. That's not why I bought a Jaguar. I did buy it because of heritage. And this was somebody that would be in that younger millennial high profile, very purpose and values driven buyer. And he was buying it because of what Jaguar represented historically, not what this ad campaign was trying to position. And I saw a few interviews with, I would say more targeted who was the actual demographic for this? They were all saying the same thing. They missed the boat on the heritage element of the brand.

Doug Downs (16:42):

It's so important for organizations to illustrate what their mission and values are and to live those mission and values. You and I talk about that all the time. Be authentic, be real. Put it up on your website, talk about it on social media. And to Jaguar's credit, they are doing that. These are their mission and values. I give them credit for doing that. If this is a dramatic misstep and a killing of the brand, is there a limit to living and portraying your mission and values? Do we only take that so far and at some point merge that with what our brand has always been?

Tyler Chisholm (17:27):

To me, it hard to, a concept that I love around permissibility. You can have the best idea in the world, but if your audience doesn't believe you or doesn't permit you to be that it's going to fail. And I think that's what we might be dealing with here a little bit and copy nothing. To your point, they copied everything, almost everything they could and actually bolted it all together almost out of touch in the sense we're woke right now is having, I would say a little bit of a backlash around people are getting fatigued around it. It seemed a little bit tone deaf from that perspective, but if your audience or even your prospective audience doesn't permit you to be the thing that you're putting out there in the world gets really tricky to be like, but this is what we stand for, but no one buys it. No one's buying into it. So therefore, if the old joke in retail, if you can't go there with your mind, you won't go there with your wallet.

Doug Downs (18:09):

If

Tyler Chisholm (18:09):

I can envision what this brand is and how I'm going to be represented when I show up in it, because let's be honest, car is not a means of transportation for most of us. It's a representation. I drive this car because it represents this or I believe that, or I want to be seen a certain way. Whether you are you aren't, it's the story we tell ourselves. If your brand isn't permitting, if you're not going to permit the brand to tell this story and then see yourself in it, that's a fail. No matter who you are or what you're trying to stand for, no matter how much you believe it to be true, actually, so

Doug Downs (18:35):

Lemme put you on the spot. Let's imagine the unveiling happens December 2nd, December 3rd. I think it's again, Occam's razor. The most likely outcome is the outcome most likely cause is the cause most likely given the anticipation that they've now built around it. It has to be better than the Batmobile. It's going to be a letdown. And that this talk about imminent brand mation meaning the brand is going to die, is the conversation that continues. Let's imagine that Jaguar then reaches out to you and says, save our brand. And I'm asking you to think, I'm asking you to think aloud what steps, and this is hypothetical, but what steps would you take to try to keep the cat alive? I think the cats used all nine of their lives here.

Tyler Chisholm (19:30):

That is a big question. You are putting me on the spot, Doug. And just for the audience, I was not given this question ahead of time.

Doug Downs (19:35):

He's not given any

Tyler Chisholm (19:37):

No, no, that's fine. Which I love it. Oh my goodness. What would I do? I would entrench. I would look at some way to pull things around. I would do a very, very limited release. I would go to a very, very super tiny market. I would take a luxury approach. I would make it coveted. I would make it hard to get, I would harken back to some degree of advancement. They're going all in on the ev, which I wouldn't say that's right or wrong. I think everyone has their opinion on that. But the trends in EV luxury purchases is going up. I think the market's traction to be 967.65 billion by 2029, the luxury and EV market combined. So there's no question that there's market opportunity. I would narrow it down. I would look for probably at that point some type of influencer and affiliation strategy.

(20:21):

Where is my audience now? Who are they hanging out with? What do they think is cool? How do I do some of a cross promotion? I'm going to have to go and steal someone else's shine, someone else's glow to pull that back into my brand a little bit. So I would look at those angles, but I would base it so heavily on the customer. Who is my customer? If it is this new highly mobile luxury brand purchaser, gen Z millennials that are now moving into that space, I would find out what's common to them and what is common to my brand as far as what Jaguar represented where there's crossover. Then I would take a bit more of the luxury play and go with, we're not trying to sell a million or 10 million cars. We're trying to sell a smaller amount and turn it into a real bougie representation of something that is got a degree of heritage, which tires the Jaguar brand.

(21:08):

So then you've got believability and credibility and kind of consistency. Then I'd bring it into something that was resonating with that group that was more current and more today. So you can still grab onto some of the modern and some of, I forget what some of their key buzzword around their new brand. And I think I would niche that down and I'd really focus and I'd play the long game and make it the niche product that's worn on the wrist or carried over the shoulder of some of the brands that they don't focus on volume, they focus on cache more than anything because then financially you can afford a smaller model run. You're not tooling up a ginormous production facility to pump out 12 models that you don't know anyone's going to buy. And I think that would be the only way to kind of strategize it and survive without just shutting it down and putting it to the annals of history,

Doug Downs (21:53):

Cogent and reasonable. I think that's really well thought out for someone just put on the spot.

Tyler Chisholm (21:58):

Thanks Doug.

Doug Downs (22:00):

Thank you Tyler. I really appreciate your time. I'll be honest, we were planning a whole different episode for Tuesday's release and then this catastrophic rebrand, cataclysmic cataclysmic, CATA

Tyler Chisholm (22:16):

Catatonic came out. Alright, we'll stop it. Got our attention, Doug. It got our attention and I had to pounce

Doug Downs (22:22):

On this idea for Tuesday. It's so fresh. And I even thought, do I wait until the vehicle unveiling? Do I play it safe? And we know it's not a super duper Batmobile and I can actually criticize the rebranding and be thoughtful and thought, you know what? No way. This is in and of itself horrendous. And I did put you on the spot. I appreciate your time today, Todd.

Tyler Chisholm (22:45):

It was my pleasure Doug. And I love that you used the word pounce. Well played sir. Well played. And at the same time, I'm okay to be right and I'm okay to be wrong and I'm okay to be somewhere in between. So if we have a follow-up episode after the new car comes out, it might be just I told you so to the world or that we're like, Hey, okay, wow. Let's talk about what we just saw here. How does this make us feel? That's the beautiful thing about being willing to take a stance. So thanks for doing that.

Doug Downs (23:07):

Yeah, and listening on Spotify, you can leave comments right in the app or if you want to send us a note, Tyler's email is in and if you

Tyler Chisholm (23:15):

Want to put me on the spot as Doug loves to do, you can do that anytime I receive and I'm open to all phone calls and form of communication.

Doug Downs (23:22):

If you'd like to send a message to my guest, Tyler Chisholm, we've got his contact information in the show notes, stories and strategies as a co-production of JGR Communications Stories and Strategies podcast. If you like this episode, you know what you could do. Recommend it to one friend. That is so powerful for growth of the podcast. Just one. Just one, just one. Just one. That's all it takes. Just one

Tyler Chisholm (23:42):

And so on and so on. And now it's a head and shoulder commercial.

Doug Downs (23:44):

Thank you to our producer Emily Page, and thanks for listening.