Snow is great. Yeah, sure it can be annoying for us adults who must shovel it out of the way all the bloody time, but its pure brilliant whiteness (0,0,0,0; #fffff) is great for lighting up our world in those long Finnish dark winters, and without it, six months of the year would be grey and lifeless (39,29,30,0; #a9a9a9).
So, as I watched on, disappointed as the second wave of ‘false flag’ snow melted away, the view from my office was once more pulled back into the greyscale. (59,39,39,0; #929292)
But this week, help came in the form of a bunch of messages linking me to the new Jaguar teaser advert’ Copy Nothing’. And yes, this advert achieves this—at least in the automotive sector.
The colours, the vibe, the avant-garde approach to their imagery, and frankly, the bravery to release what is essentially a declaration of intent to the rest of the automotive sector were a breath of fresh air to me. This was a marketing and values video, not an advert. (Car in pic – 14,89,96,0; #c0481d)
People confuse the two. Marketing is not advertising.
Most people are used to being advertised 24/7. Large-scale advertising is expensive and complex to set up effectively so any expense would normally warrant a return on investment.
This was not that. This was art and people got confused. They didn’t even show a product for heaven’s sake!
Predictably, almost all of the blogosphere and online reactionarti… (a new word. Don’t use it, I’m copyrighting that) seemed to have missed the point as they immediately took to the internet with the usual dull astonishment and rage. Overlaying their trademarked prejudices on top of a thing where it doesn’t belong.
The usual British xenophobic rants about the lack of union jacks, mumbling about the logo and lamenting an empire long lost and middle-class lifestyle conservatives staring at beautiful people in non-gender specific clothes while clenching their butt cheeks and grasping their pearls (#) howling at the moon about wokeness. Dull, predictable, inane. But that is the internet. And in my opinion, that is the automotive sector’s approach to car promotion. Boring and predictable.
I have had a connection to the car industry for over 30 years, I grew up in central England, an automotive powerhouse, where small sport car fabrication met monolithic car production. I say met, in the past tense, as that was thrown away in the 80’s. My first qualification was car technology and design. Part of my work in 3D design touches the automotive industries from time to time and I have noticed that the themes have not changed for decades.
Much like the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00’s the messaging has been all about beautiful curves, convivence, and reliability with aspiration value coming in fourth place. Adverts of a beautiful couple driving around the curving roads of the Alps, smiling at each other.
With Tesla and the new electric revolution, connected cars becoming the norm, do these old values still hold true? I personally think not.
Much like a Patek Philippe or Rolex watch being pushed aside for an Apple Watch Ultra, cars are becoming seen more as devices than working machines. And so, the ‘status value’ is leveling out across the classes. New money, young entrepreneurs, and people who grew up connected world hold more value in software and seamless compatibility with their other devices than a dash made from rare wood. This is why we see a society where the local florist as well as the tech millionaire both use the same badly built Tesla 3.
I believe Jaguar understands that they cannot survive as a company that just makes cars, they need to provoke the same aspirational values in the way Apple did with their iPhone. A device, a lifestyle, and a new way of thinking for a generation of people who think about products differently. Looking back at Rover, another old English car company, that tried to reboot its image as a retro car brand like the VW Beetle and the Mini range. It failed immediately and closed. MG is going in the same direction. This is what Jaguar is also facing.
Jaguar is an über luxury brand. In any given year, the super luxury car sector accounts for only 8.5 million of the 77 million cars sold worldwide per year. Jaguar only makes 70,000 cars per year. Let’s be fair here, 99.999% of the world will never have 100,000 dollars spare to buy a car. Even those who can, still don’t.
Their future growth prospects will not be from the UK. The company has not been a UK company for decades with most of the operations shipped out to Poland and Slovakia. The world’s extreme wealth is in the Americas and the Near and Far East. The age of cigar-chomping, gin & tonic drinking British banker types, oozing over 12 cylinders, massive wheels, wood and ivory inlays, and space for the golf clubs is no longer a relevant image for any product in 2024, and yet the Populus expects the company to retain that image, risking all 40,000 staff that work there.
If you need a good example to help understand what they are doing, look back to another struggling company that had to modernise or die. Gucci.
Gucci stagnated for decades in the equestrian / horse-riding aesthetic. Sticking steadfastly to their brown leather (43,84,90,15; #7e482f) and topes (25,35,42,0; #c3ac95). Their target audience was slowly shuffling their way over the rainbow bridge and as the old saying goes, ‘dead people don’t buy much merch*.
Gucci managed to avoid bankruptcy by bringing in the designer Tom Ford, recalibrating their client base, modernise and creating products for younger people who are willing to throw all their discretionary cash at those who can brand well. And boy did that work!
Building an expectation and excitement over time before a launch is a great idea. All the ridicule the memes and the confusion online only add equity to their initial to the investment. And this is fine, so long as the product doesn’t suck like the Tesla cyber truck.
Jaguar is entering the same aspirational marketing space as avant-garde fashion and watches only with a modern utilitarian tech twist.
It is what Jaguar needs to survive and is what their target market wants. We will never be the target demographic, even in the second-hand markets, so they don’t care what we think. They shouldn’t care what we think. Nothing they do will affect your daily life so enjoy the art, and the vibrant colours and try to absorb some of the cool energy. And then scroll down and walk away.
*overheard in a noisy bar in Covent Garden
