Do you want to buy a Jaguar? Because suddenly I don’t want to have one anymore. My F-Type, which was once my pride and joy, is now an embarrassment to me.
And apparently, I’m just as much of an embarrassment to the manufacturer. They are desperate to disown me and anyone who looks like me: middle class, male, white and “heteronormative.”
As it prepares to launch its new range on December 2, Jaguar has sparked outrage and ridicule by releasing a 30-second advert featuring eight miserable-looking androgynous catwalk models in ridiculous clothes. And not a car in sight.
The commercial begins with a yellow pod on a pink Martian landscape. When the doors open, with a pulsating mechanical sound, out come the robotic mannequins. One has a neck like a lampshade and her skirt puffs around her knees. Next to him is a woman with a rectangular piece cut from her afro and pompoms for ankles.
It turns out that both women are black. Behind them is an Asian man all dressed in yellow with a velvet donut around his waist. “Create lush,” the caption urges. ‘Live vividly.’
A man with a grayish bob spins like a mechanical dancer on a music box, leaving a trail of paint from a brush on his hand.
“Delete Ordinary” declares the next title. Then an albino woman takes out a yellow mallet: “Break the mold,” they exhort us, although she doesn’t break anything. “Do not copy anything.”
It’s a ridiculous sight, and if the word “Jaguar” didn’t appear for three seconds at the end, you’d assume it was meant to sell perfume or possibly hallucinogenic mushroom soup.
Jaguar sparked outrage and ridicule with the release of a 30-second advert showing eight miserable-looking androgynous catwalk models in ridiculous clothes, writes James Esses.
It is an extraordinary departure from the image that Jaguar has built up as a “British icon” for many decades.
The brand is not British, of course, and has not been since it was sold to Tata Motors, part of the Indian steel conglomerate of the same name in 2008. But until now it has been proud of its 80-year automotive pedigree. .
Even the motto “Copy nothing” is a tacit nod to the company’s founder, Sir William Lyons, who said: “A Jaguar should not be a copy of anything.”
Jaguar drivers have always enjoyed the brand’s macho, hedonistic and luxurious reputation. Ten years ago, its promotions department came up with the theme ‘Good to be Bad’, with actor Tom Hiddleston at the wheel, revving the engine and reciting Shakespeare.
It showed the cars to such perverse effect that the Advertising Standards Authority quickly banned the campaign. It encouraged buyers, the ASA said, to drive in a way that was “irresponsible and illegal”.
Jaguar has ditched the traditional all-caps logo and replaced it with a weedy typeface.
There is no danger of that happening now. The characters in the current ad look as if they only ride an electric scooter or a UFO.
On social media, the reaction has been scathing. “How to destroy your brand in 30 seconds,” one commenter wrote under the ad on YouTube. “This is not a rebrand, it’s Jaguar’s farewell to the world,” said another.
But the marketing department doesn’t seem defiant so much as arrogant and completely unaware. What the hell is this really?’ asked a user on X.
“The future,” Jaguar’s social media team responded, managing to sound pompous and prudish in two words. That future includes ditching the traditional logo with its ‘big cat’ snarl and all-caps letters, replacing it with a weedy typeface that reads ‘JaGUar.’
The British brand has a decorated past, with many A-list celebrities endorsing the company; none more majestic than Princess Diana, photographed here with an XJ Sovereign in 1987.
When one person asked: ‘Umm, where are the cars in this ad?’ Is this for fashion? Jaguar responded: “Think of this as a statement of intent.”
“If you wake up, you’re ruined,” one tweeter warned. “Try hard,” the manufacturer replied. Billionaire Tesla and X owner Elon Musk joked: “Do you sell cars?” “Yes,” Jaguar replied smugly. ‘We’d love to show you. Will you join us for a cup of tea in Miami on December 2nd?
This is a reference to the product’s upcoming launch in Florida: rumored to be a four-door electric saloon costing £100,000. Perhaps the most sinister response came when someone asked if this was Jaguar’s real online account. “You’ll soon see things our way,” they responded, sounding more like the East German secret police than a British car manufacturer.
Jaguar CEO Rawdon Glover, middle-aged, is as unrepentant as his teenage social media team. He expects most of Jaguar’s current customers to abandon the brand and 85 percent of future sales to be made to new customers.
It’s obvious that he and his executives are ashamed of the people who buy their cars… people like me. We are seen as overwhelmingly white, with Brexit and beyond the first wave of youth. We are no longer welcome and neither is our money.
Apparently, he is unaware of the catastrophic consequences suffered by the American beer brand Budweiser, which tried to renew its Bud Light brand by hiring the transgender ‘TikTok influencer’ Dylan Mulvaney to renew its image. So many people switched to drinking other beers in protest that Bud Light lost its dominance as a best seller in the United States.
Last week, Boots tried a similar trick with its Christmas advert, starring Adjoa Andoh, the actress who described the King’s Coronation as “terribly white”, in the role of Mrs Claus and using gender-neutral pronouns.
Jaguar’s rebrand ahead of its all-electric future has led James Esses to consider selling his engine for one of Elon Musk’s Teslas – the owner of the electric vehicle company has recently been named “efficiency czar” in President-elect Trump’s team.
The new logo has a sleek, simple design that spells out the ‘J’ for Jaguar, a stark contrast to the outgoing macho design.
Unsurprisingly, it sparked a backlash online. Boots clearly failed to understand that people want to be entertained and delighted by Christmas adverts, not lectured and mocked.
But increasingly, companies seem happy to ditch their entire customer base in favor of this kind of woke virtue signaling, even if it hits them in the pocketbook. First the activists. Loyal customers second.
Not that Jaguar owners, who for some reason might be tempted to opt for an electric vehicle after this catastrophic rebrand, will be able to purchase one anytime soon. Next-generation electric vehicles are not expected to go on sale until 2026, so customers will go elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in a double insult to loyal British Jag drivers, overseas buyers will still be able to order the F-Pace which went out of production in the UK earlier this month.
It’s also increasingly clear that electric vehicles are not the ecological wonders we’ve been led to believe. Battery manufacturing involves the mining of rare metals, which often causes serious damage to the environment.
And while their electric motors generate negligible carbon emissions, much of the energy they consume is in turn generated with fossil fuels. Critics claim their tires disintegrate more quickly due to their greater weight, causing pollution. And potholed British roads are no longer fit for use in many places.
All of Jaguar’s insistence that electric vehicles are “the future” ignores the obvious fact that the UK lacks the infrastructure to support the electric cars we already have, let alone millions more.
Charging points do not exist. Most people do not have private access for overnight charging. And our National Grid is not prepared for a massive increase in demand.
I don’t think electric vehicles are the future. Neither does the general public, judging by the decline in electric vehicle sales. Other manufacturers, from Ford to Porsche, report that the market is shrinking and are cutting electrical production.
Even if I decided to buy one, it wouldn’t be from a salesman with shoulder-length PVC gloves and shaved eyebrows, dressed in 50 feet of shiny chiffon. It would be a Tesla of the enemy of awakening, Elon Musk.
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