Yes, this is another opinion piece on the Jaguar rebrand. What’s more, it’s written by a 50-year-old white male. I’m not the target audience they are going for.
I’ve commented on posts about the Jaguar rebrand, sharing in their shock and horror. Roiling about how they’re destroying a heritage brand and blah, blah, blah.
Then I reflected on it and imagined how I might defend their rebrand. This is my defence piece.
A VERY QUICK POTTED HISTORY OF JAGUARS BRAND STRUGGLES
Jaguar were an iconic brand of the 60s and 70s. In the 80s and 90s they really struggled, production was poor, their design was bland, just reworking their Sovereign XJ6 models and in the 90s they released their replacement for the e-Type class cars with the XK8 and XKR. They even got it into a Bond film alongside the Aston Martin and it seemed to claw back a bit of its cool for a short period (until the build quality started to show they weren’t that great at least).
Their target audience were aging and they they continued to struggle to reach that young, cool market that they had in the 60s and 70s. They remained an old man’s brand through the first two decades of the 21stcentury.
A BRAVE NEW WORLD – REJECT THE CURRENT AUDIENCE
So, this new brand with its loud colours, TK Maxx style teaser ad and hollow concept that everyone is raging about is possibly designed to repulse the older generation.
They’ve deleted all their old social content with their ‘old man’s’ range. They’ve teased a new direction to be revealed in Miami on 2 December 2024. They are wiping the slate clean and starting anew.
I think they want to reject their existing audience and they want everyone to be repulsed and enraged. They want this because it’s the only way they can start a dialogue with a younger generation. If you look back throughout the last 60 years since their heyday, younger generations have always rebelled against the older generations, the Rolling Stones grew their hair long and wore women’s blouses and played ‘black music’, stealing the girlfriends of the American hicks on their American tour.
And this has happened in different forms throughout every decade and every generation time and again. Today, it seems grotesque to many people over 50. The sexual diversity and the surgical enhancements look that like Spitting Image puppets or pantomime dames seem ridiculous – it’s just another form of the late teen’s early twenties rebellion, self-identification and expression.
THE FUTURE OF THE BRAND LIES IN THE FOLLOW UP
Ask a Gen Zer what they think – those I’ve spoken to like it and they are enjoying watching all the ‘oldies’ being gammons about it.
Jaguar wants to build for future generations and create an engagement with them. It won’t happen overnight; they have to reject their existing audience.
They need to build a new series of cars that can be the icons for the new generation of up-and-coming ‘cool kids’ who have the money through being influencers or tech geniuses. The money is there; they don’t have to go mass market.
The actual test will show how they follow up with this brave new approach. They need products that engage the younger audience they so desire. They must also create a more authentic approach because Gen Z are no fools.
I hate it, but this could be a genius move, and I’ll be watching with my popcorn to see how it all unfolds.
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