Along with Aston Martin and Rolls Royce, Jaguar is, for most people, one of the great British blue chip motoring brands. When Inspector Morse drove around the not-so-mean streets of Oxford in his burgundy Jaguar Mark II, the implicit association between the terribly English detective and the quintessentially stylish car was one that lingered on in viewers’ minds far beyond the show. Jaguar has always been that rare company that has conveyed an innate sense of style and class throughout its century-long existence. So why, exactly, have they decided to torpedo their hard-won reputation in such a perplexingly unforced fashion?
Jaguar has decided to change its name to ‘JaGUar’
Jaguar have made such a strange series of mistakes and missteps that I had to double-check that it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. Not since Apple decided to commit hara-kiri earlier this year with a similarly baffling and imbecilic iPad Pro advertisement has a company come out with such a truly dismal idea. Jaguar has decided to change its name to ‘JaGUar’ which, according to the company, has ‘seamlessly blended upper and lower case characters in visual harmony’. Up to a point, Lord Copper. The carmaker has also changed its genuinely iconic leaping cat design to something far more banal and unimpressive, not least because it’s been embossed on brass: the animal has gone from being a proud beast to looking like it’s kept in a cage. To make matters even worse, there is also a truly appalling new advert.
None other than the trade magazine CarDealer called the relaunch ‘possibly the most bizarre automotive media launch I’ve ever attended’. It isn’t hard to see why, judged by the breathtakingly misguided new clip. With a pointless new promotional slogan that feels like a placeholder – ‘Copy nothing’ – the advert, which contains not a single shot of a car or anything remotely connected to the product, shows a diverse cast clad in Barbarella-esque costumes prancing about in some strange and quasi-futuristic setting. Meanwhile, we are bombarded with meaningless verbiage – ‘Live vivid’, ‘Delete ordinary’, ‘Break moulds’ and the like. As if to ram the point home, one of the cast literally wields a gigantic yellow hammer, looking as if they would like to start a fight. I can’t say I blame them.
Reaction has been swift and negative. None other than Tesla supremo Elon Musk weighed in with the simple question, ‘Do you sell cars?’ Whoever is running Jaguar’s (or JaGUar, as we must learn to call it) social media is irritatingly sassy, responding to Musk by inviting him for a ‘cuppa’ in Miami in December. They have also been making all kinds of grandiose pronouncements: ‘Think of this as a declaration of intent’ and ‘The story is unfolding. Stay tuned’.
If I was JaGUar, I would be watching their share prices very, very carefully right now. The sound of a million panicked investors wondering why a reputable and beloved company has chosen to commit reputational suicide so publicly is bound to grow and grow to a crescendo.
JaGUar are, of course, correct to pivot away from petrol towards electric cars. As the success of Tesla has shown, environmental awareness can be combined with cutting-edge style to hugely successful effect. Perhaps the old associations and traditions associated with the brand are anachronistic now, and it did need a reinvention of some kind. But this brash, frenetic and thoroughly misguided farrago feels as crass and as disrespectful as if someone had spray-painted graffiti all over the Cenotaph. Morse famously died of a heart attack on his final case. If he could see what has been done to his beloved cars, it would break his heart all over again.
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