When German manufacturer BMW took over the Mini brand and launched the Mini Cooper in 2001, some people were outraged. Drivers with previous models even slapped on bumper stickers reading “this is a real Mini”. The BBC reported that executives insisted the car “is not a small BMW”.
The storm died down, and Mini has gone on to sell more cars each year (about 300,000) than ever before, many of them emblazoned with union jack tail-lights – whatever the ownership of the factory.
Another British car brand now hopes to follow a similar course through a barrage of controversy – albeit one supercharged in the social media age. Jaguar will, on Monday, unveil a first electric concept car in Miami. Yet this time it has not been the car that has provoked anger, but rather a 30-second teaser trailer featuring a diverse group of models walking around a vaguely alien landscape. “Copy nothing” is the tagline, channelling Jaguar founder William Lyons, while signalling a decisive break with the past.
The backlash has been shocking. Tesla boss Elon Musk responded to the video on his social network, X, asking, “do you sell cars?” (bringing the campaign to millions). The Daily Mail drew attention to unrelated remarks about diversity by a mid-level marketing executive who it wrongly said had “masterminded” the rebrand, which it labelled “woke”. That unleashed a rush of culture warriors and the online far right – plus a torrent of homophobia and transphobia in the advert’s wake.
All this before the public has even seen the car.
The actual mastermind of the rebrand is Gerry McGovern, chief creative officer of JLR, the Indian-owned parent company of struggling Jaguar and very successful Land Rover. He has made it clear that provocation was part of the plan. “He wants to stir things up,” said someone who has worked with him.
“They clearly can’t carry on with Jaguar as it is,” said David Bailey, a professor of business economics at the University of Birmingham. The brand may be beloved, but sales fell from 180,000 in 2018 to fewer than 67,000 in its 2023 financial year.
“It has been in decline,” said Bailey. “It hasn’t been able to compete against the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi in the premium market.”
JLR tore up the Jaguar plan in 2021, cancelling an electric version of the venerable XJ saloon and instead aiming to be electric-only – and much more expensive – by 2025.
Corporate logic, as much as creative impulse, has dictated design choices. Jaguar had a great design success with its award-winning I-Pace electric vehicle – still the only EV sold by JLR – but the brand could not go further down the SUV path with Jaguar in case it cannibalised profitable Land Rover sales.
Instead, pictures of a heavily camouflaged car published by Autocar magazine show a grand tourer with the profile of an American muscle car. Teaser images show that it has also dispensed with the rear windscreen (in favour of a digital rear-view mirror – a move, already embraced by electric rival Polestar, that allows for better aerodynamic form ) as well as the “growler” cat logo.
Ginny Buckley, the boss of British EV-buying website Electrifying.com, has seen the new Jaguar but agreed not to disclose details yet. But, she said, “nothing has made my jaw drop as much in 27 years of reporting on cars”.
Buckley said response from her readers and listeners to the rebrand was split between people applauding the bold statement and others who thought it had abandoned the spirit of classics such as the 1960s E-Type sportscar (although a common theme was that they had been appalled by the homophobic reaction). But that fits with the plan: despite implausible “inclusive” branding, the company is trying to sell fewer, more expensive cars. It expects only a small fraction of previous Jaguar buyers to go for the new models, which will be made in Solihull. Jaguar expects to make its first deliveries in 2026, and the price is expected to at the £100,000 mark – compared with an average of about £55,000 now.
This may not be the worst time for a change of direction. There is already a lot of evidence that consumers have become more fickle in the electric age, with less complex engineering to differentiate brands. China’s electric brands have benefited in particular, winning share in a struggling EV market where before they were bit-part players.
“Copy nothing” may be standard woolly brandspeak, but it also reflects car companies’ tricky position. The global industry is going through an unprecedented change in the transition to electric. There is no existing playbook to copy.
