Woke it may be, but Jaguar’s ‘Copy Nothing’ video is a work of marketing genius. With its ungendered models, ungrammatical slogans (‘live vivid’, ‘delete ordinary’) and strange absence of cars, the 30-second ad has brought global attention to a brand that was dying for want of a new generation of customers, in an auto industry in turmoil over its stalled transition from carbon fuel to battery power. And a week later comes the reveal in Miami of the futuristic Type 00 electric concept car that the fuss was really about.
Love it or hate it, the dictum of founder Sir William Lyons that inspired the video’s title, ‘a Jaguar should be a copy of nothing’, has certainly been fulfilled by this bold shedding of heritage, which even replaces the ‘growler’ grille badge with something more like a barcode. But still the E-Type last built half a century ago remains the petrolhead’s dream; and Inspector Morse’s maroon Mark 2 will forever find corpses on afternoon television. Fascinating as it was to learn from Sir John Hegarty – the advertising guru who transformed Audi’s fortunes in the 1980s – on the Today programme about the sinuous art of rebranding, Jaguar’s heritage is safely stored in our collective memory. How sad that we could no longer also hear from Lord ‘Two Jags’ Prescott, late leader of the marque’s lost tribe.
Live dismal
It can’t be long before some online wag produces a spoof rebranding video for the Labour cabinet, looking miserable in red jumpsuits under slogans such as ‘live dismal’ and ‘delete promise’.
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