Jaguar boss defends new ad and rebrand amid ‘horrendous hate’ online | Jaguar Land Rover

The boss of Jaguar has defended the company’s move away from “traditional car stereotypes” after a clip of its new ad was met with a barrage of “horrendous hate and intolerance” online.

This week Jaguar Land Rover, the British luxury carmaker owned by India’s Tata Motors, released a 30-second clip of the X featuring models in brightly colored clothing set against equally vibrant backdrops, without a car or the company’s traditional cat logo.

“If we play the same way as everyone else, we’ll just drown. So we shouldn’t emerge as a car brand,” Jaguar chief executive Rawdon Glover told the Financial Times about the company’s “copy nothing” campaign.

The new ad and rebrand prompted a backlash with more than 100,000 comments, including from the platform’s CEO, Elon Musk, who responded: “Do you sell cars?”

In response, Glover said, “Yes. We’d love to show you,” and invited Musk to coffee in Miami next month, where the company will present a public installation for the rebrand at Miami Art Week.

Glover told the FT that while the response to the new campaign, which attracted more than 160 million views on social media, had been “very positive”, he said he was disappointed by “the vile hatred and intolerance” in the comments towards them , which was featured in video.

“This is a reimagining that recaptures the essence of Jaguar, returning it to the values ​​that once made it so beloved, but making it relevant to a contemporary audience,” said Jaguar’s chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern.

Britain’s biggest car employer – officially known as JLR – while slower than its rivals to embrace electric vehicles, has made recent investments to build hybrid cars and prepare for electric vehicle production, starting with the first deliveries of the electric Range Rover , made at its main factory in Solihull, in the West Midlands, at the end of next year.

James Ramsden, the executive creative director at London design agency Coley Porter Bell, said the rebranding was a “radical reinvention” by a company looking to appeal to a new generation.

“It’s just a shame it walked away from some of the iconic, treasured and beautiful icons that have embodied the brand’s DNA for generations,” Ramsden told Adweek. “If you want to ‘break the mold’, you better have one hell of a lineup of cars full of innovations and idioms, with a new buyer experience, ready to roll … we’re waiting to see.”