Elon Musk blasts new Jaguar campaign. 'Do you sell cars?'

Jaguar's recent promotional video ignited a wave of online criticism and confusion. The advertisement, released on social media platforms, showcases models in bright-colored outfits and notably omits any actual Jaguar cars. It features slogans like "create exuberant," "live vivid," "delete ordinary," and "break moulds."

Critics, including high-profile figures like Elon Musk, question the absence of one element in the advertisement--Jaguar cars. "Do you sell cars?" Musk asked on X. His remark was liked more than 164,000 times and viewed nearly 3 million times. Jaguar replied to Musk, inviting him to an event in Miami on December 2, which underwhelmed many X users.

Los Angeles Times, Breitbart News, New York Post, Forbes, Business Insider, Fortune, and Newsweek were among the outlets that weighed in on the campaign and the response.

Other social media users expressed their confusion and disappointment. One user posted: "Umm where are the cars in this ad?" Another commented, "This is the new head of brand strategy at Jaguar. Not looking good for them at all." Conservative personality Ian Miles Cheong criticized Jaguar's new brand strategy on X, saying it reflects the company's "woke ideology" and promotion of DEI initiatives.

The advertisement features androgynous models in brightly colored outfits, including one man wearing a dress, strutting and dancing over a dark Euro trance-type beat, resembling a Paris fashion show. Some critics find the video's technicolor aesthetic and gender-fluid models at odds with Jaguar's traditional luxury image.

"People aren't going to buy your car based on garish, outdated, woke virtue-signalling. They'll buy it if it's better than a Tesla. It isn't," said psychology professor Geoffrey Miller,

"I have 76 cars, I do not own a Jag - and now I never will," Andrew Tate, a British-American media personality, expressed his displeasure.

Influencer Collin Rugg wrote, "oof. We already turned the page on this."

"This is so the wrong timing for this. I can understand the C-suite being conned into this in 2022, but they have completely misread the moment. Bud Light 2.0," commented columnist Jon Gabriel.

Jaguar's new advertisement is part of a rebranding campaign titled "Copy Nothing," which aims to highlight the brand's shift towards becoming an all-electric luxury manufacturer by 2025. The company's new identity includes a redesigned logo that replaces the all-caps lettering with a stylized "JaGUar," blending upper and lowercase letters, and features a simplistic font and a modernized "leaper" image. The image of the jaguar has also been reinvented.

Copy nothing. #Jaguar pic.twitter.com/BfVhc3l09B

— Jaguar (@Jaguar) November 19, 2024

"This is a complete reset. To bring back such a globally renowned brand we had to be fearless," said Rawdon Glover, Jaguar's managing director. "We need to change people's perceptions of what Jaguar stands for. Jaguar was always at its best when challenging convention. That ethos is seen in our new brand identity today and will be further revealed over the coming months. This is a complete reset. Jaguar is transformed to reclaim its originality and inspire a new generation. I am excited for the world to finally see Jaguar."

In response to the criticism, Jaguar has maintained a mysterious tone in its responses on X, stating, "The story is unfolding. Stay tuned," to various queries.

Marketing professionals have weighed in on the controversy. Charles Taylor, a marketing professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, said that the promotional video has the wrong tone for potential buyers. He stated that Jaguar is making a mistake by not using the brand's heritage as a stylish British high-performance sports car in its marketing. "If they came back with a really good electric vehicle, they could build on their previous image instead of discarding the brand's heritage and taking this kind of direction," he said.

Lulu Cheng Meservey, co-founder of Rostra PR group, called Jaguar's rebranding and marketing shift "disastrous." She commented, "It is possible a marketing exec read too many think pieces about how Millennials shop based on values and forgot that people want cars that are really well built." She added, "Forsaking its traditional male audience is a big mistake."

Some social media users pointed out that, no matter what you think of the company's new ad, it's gotten everyone talking. Sports broadcaster and former Formula 1 racing driver Martin Brundle wrote on X: "I have no idea what this is all about, but it's genius. Everyone is talking about Jaguar in a moment of time when they're not actually making cars."

Jaguar's campaign has been compared to the colorful adverts released by tech moguls Apple, with some users slamming its emphasis on diversity as "woke." Critics have questioned the "woke" branding of Jaguar's new identity, noting that it may alienate its usual audience as the company attempts to appeal to a broader market.

The advertisement's lack of vehicles has been a focal point of criticism. One X user said, "All this ad tells me is to not buy your car," in response to the Jaguar ad. Another user commented, "You don't have to do this humiliation ritual anymore, you can just post a short video of a nice car and call it good."

Jaguar is relaunching as an all-electric brand, with an all-new electric vehicle-only lineup arriving in 2026 and a goal to go fully electric by 2025, phasing out all internal combustion engines. The company's new brand strategy was created by its own in-house design team, not an external agency.

Gerry McGovern, Jaguar's Chief Creative Officer, described the new brand identity as "imaginative, bold, artistic, unique, and fearless," reflecting the company's ambition to move beyond its traditional automotive roots. In a press release, he explained the philosophy driving the change: "This is a reimagining that recaptures the essence of Jaguar, returning it to the values that once made it so loved, but making it relevant for a contemporary audience."

This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq