When, in four years' time, we inevitably start looking back at the most notable rebrands of the decade, Jaguar's will surely be remembered as one of the most controversial. The luxury car brand's 'woke' rebrand, which involved a bouncy new wordmark and not a car in sight in the launch ad, drew derision from all four corners of the globe, and even the moon (Elon Musk wasn't a fan) when revealed in 2024.
Jaguar was clearly knocked by the response, with both its advertising agency and its creative director departing within a year of the fiasco. But in a rare insight into the internal machinations of dealing with a branding controversy, the brand's managing director Rawdon Glover has spoken out about the fallout.
In an interview with the Car Dealer Podcast, Glover recently explained how the backlash affected the team, and how a single tweet by Elon Musk accelerated the online explosion.
"Personally, I felt a great amount of responsibility to the team here," Glover told the podcast, describing the incident as a "tough time" for those who received vitriol online. "I felt a responsibility to look out for them. I felt a responsibility to defend what we’re doing and to defend them."
Elon Musk took to Twitter (sorry, X) with a four-word rebuke after the ad launched, simply asking the brand, "Do you sell cars?" The comment was no doubt referencing the fact that no cars appeared in the ad. Instead we were shown a diverse cast of characters in bright clothing, along with various slogans including "copy nothing" and "delete the ordinary". But after Musk's tweet, it became "very difficult to control the narrative.
"I do remember exactly where I was when Elon Musk had tweeted and we were like, “well, what do you do with that? How do you respond to that?”" Glover said. "I wouldn’t say we were walking around high-fiving. We weren’t also walking around with our head in our hands thinking, oh my goodness, the person with the most reach on social media anywhere has just posted. We responded to Elon. We actually invited him to Miami to the launch. We said, “you should come and join us for a cup of tea.” He didn’t join us."
