We've seen plenty of unpopular and/or controversial rebrands over the last few years, and nothing seems to stir up quite as much debate as a new car logo. From Kia's 'unreadable' wordmark to countless flattened versions of existing logos, vehicular design always evokes an emotional response, perhaps because of the loyalty these brand foster among fans. But in five years of covering rebrands, I've never seen anything quite like the response to the new Jaguar branding.
It's rare that a rebrand gets everyone from branding experts to Elon Musk talking, but this one has certainly broken the industry bubble to become a bonafide piece of mainstream news. But while one of the main criticisms of the marketing imagery, with its diversity, colourful outfits and notable absence of a single car, is its apparent woke-baiting, most sides of the cultural and political divide seem to be calling this one a misstep. If anything, then, the whole enterprise has proven somewhat unifying.
In the latest development, Jaguar itself has waded into the discourse by, as the BBC reports, asking people to 'trust and reserve judgement' on the rebrand. Which is pretty unprecedented step – it's not like a luxury brand to acknowledge the unpopularity of one of its creative decisions, particularly after just a week. But then perhaps the brand was trying to ease the pressure for its poor old social media manager, who has been heroically responding to the avalanche of negative tweets with cryptic responses to the tune of 'Watch this space,' and 'All will be revealed'.
Which begs the question; what will be revealed? Everyone is now waiting to see what Jaguar will do next – and whether it will actually reveal any cars. In the last few days, the company has teased a few close-up shots of details of an upcoming electric car, due to be revealed in Miami on 2 December. But these shots have done little to quell the backlash, with the angular design compared to that of an air conditioning unit.
At this point, it's looking pretty easy to write this one off as one of the most disastrous rebrands of the decade – the 'New Coke' of the 2020s, if you will. But there are some already wondering if maybe, just maybe, there could be more to it. Some have even speculated that, since the rebrand is so apparently out of character, it could all be a joke.
Lee Rolston, chief growth officer at BIA-winning agency Jones Knowles Ritchie, shared an optimisitic notion with Creative Bloq. "Let’s hope Jaguar has just pulled off the greatest marketing hoax in history—getting the world talking about its electric future by seemingly discarding the entire equity of the Jaguar brand in one bold stroke. Creating an unprecedented level of brand noise, only to reveal, on December 3rd, the most desirable, beautifully designed, quintessentially Jaguar-esque EV ever. Branded exactly as a Jaguar should be. Mocking the beige, generic electric car brands with a brilliantly executed teaser film. In this scenario, they’d be utter geniuses—saving the brand and sweeping awards season."
While a 'gotcha' might be a little too much to hope for next week, we're certainly intrigued to see what more Jaguar has to reveal about its new direction on 4 December. And indeed, nobody can argue that Jaguar hasn't enjoyed (or is that endured?) a ton of brand noise in the last week – more than I think I've seen any rebrand generate in the last five years.
