The now infamous car manufacturer Jaguar has entered their latest commercial into the woke all-star Olympics with what has been labeled by many as an utter failure. Jaguar, an iconic car brand that has built equity as a luxury high-class and sophisticated brand over the previous decades decided it no longer wants to be seen in such a way. Instead, the marketing team/CEO/Board/GenX felt now was the time to force some truly weird ideology down everyone’s collective mind.
The New Logo
From a branding perspective, the new logo is objectively very simple. You can make arguments for it having some grounding, but largely, you could have gotten better results for $25 on Fiverr today (call me Jag, and we can rework this thing while saving you some serious cash). It lacks creativity or the sophistication its cars should be known for, and in no explicit terms would you know it has any relation to the brand or a Jaguar if this news missed you. They at least could have made the J’s look like teeth and the tails like claws or some combination of anything nearly resembling the icon big cat.
Copy Nothing Unless Its An Old Apple Commercial
However this is only the beginning of this rather entertaining iconic failure. In a bizarre twist the creative team also seemed to ignore the most repeated mantra in their own commercial “Copy Nothing”. Instead of making some genuine, brave and new piece of art they decided to rehash an old Apple commercial that references 1984. Not only did it copy another idea, but it failed to impress the same level of awe or wonder. And yet even this isn’t the biggest issue most average Americans are having.
Super Woke Olympics
Jaguar went super woke, or cringe, or just plain cosmic on everyone out of the damn blue. The video ad that accompanied the big announcement is confusing. It features a diverse group of individuals who all seem to resemble a teen who just smoked their first joint. It also made a point to feature three blacks, two whites and two Asians, as in you know, to let everyone see themselves just how diverse and inclusive the brand is. There is nothing like putting race as a defining feature for a group that believes race is a construct. Yet the most weird aspect of it all is the random scenes apparently filmed on Mars with dubious application of makeup.
The audience is left with one major question: Who is this ad or this car for that matter, for?
So what will happen next? The collective minds of Linkedin, X and other platforms have spoken loud & clear – this was a major failure. I was surprised to see the CEO of Jaguar come out bashing everyone who didn’t like it as intolerant. Quickly people began to make excuses and elaborate conspiracies about how Jaguar is really a genius and they will ‘save’ this flop with a more elaborate plan. Even articles that shed a light on the operating team behind this were told to shut up. It does seem that no one will be fired, no teams replaced, and that Jaguar will continue to live in denial.
Had this been your job, and your result, you would have been fired. And I’m putting my voice down to say that if there is no coming to Jesus moment for our industry we are in a serious downhill spiral.
