Why Didn’t They Do That In The First Place?
Sometimes there are things that make me think “why didn’t they do that in the first place?”. One of those moments came when seeing the latest promotions from Jaguar, particularly those done in partnership with the FT.
I doubt I need to remind anyone about the Jaguar promotional video and wider messaging which they used in December 2024, under the strap line “Copy Nothing” which certainly generated a lot of publicity for them – but not much of it was positive. The messaging was very much about starting something new, without reference to the past. And indeed, the Chief Creative Officer of JLR at the time stated that the Jaguar brand had no equity.
Since then things have changed, the person who said there was no brand equity has left the company, and most significantly they are now very happy to reference their past and demonstrate how it is shaping their future.
As a car enthusiast I have read the magazine reports of journalists invited to drive the classic Jaguars that their own engineers drove to help them understand the characteristics of the brand, and then to drive the prototype of the new Type01 electric car. And now the promotions are emphasising those links.
With my marketer hat on I can’t help thinking that much of the negative publicity would have been avoided if they had started by talking about the historical references, linking their past to the future, and not saying they didn’t expect previous customers to buy the future products. Instead, whilst there would be some resistance and concerns about the change in market position, and the move to electric cars only (which is inevitably controversial), it is likely that wider audiences would have understood better, and seen how the new direction was the right thing for a brand that hadn’t been as successful as it should have been recently.
It’s a basic element of branding – draw on the history of the brand, and Jaguar have an amazing history to draw on. So as the FT Partner content (here and here) is headed “From roaring engines to silent power.
The reinvention of an iconic car brand for the electric age” is surely more appropriate than a strange video which didn’t even include a car.
If you want to avoid the negative publicity Jaguar had the Brand Proposition module from the Chartered Institute of Marketing Level 6 Diploma in Professional and Digital Marketing is ideal. We offer it through tutor led live stream workshops and also self study video learning tutorials.
