Jaguar Land Rover’s managing director is defending British luxury car company Its recent rebranding prompted a strong reaction on social media.
Jaguar introduced its new logo and slogan, “Copy Nothing”, in a promotional video last week.
Advertisement featured androgynous models in brightly colored, over-the-top costumes, accompanied by a man wearing a dress, along with other slogans such as “Be Vibrant,” “Stay Vibrant,” “Remove Ordinary” and “Break the Mold.” . Notably, the ad did not feature any cars that ran for 30 seconds.
The video went viral on social media, receiving over 163 million views and over 100,000 comments.
Critics accused Jaguar of abandoning its heritage as a high-performance sports car manufacturer with the marketing campaign and claimed the brand had become “woke”.
In a recent interview with financial Times, Jaguar Land Rover managing director Rawdon Glover defended the brand’s relaunch and denied that the ad was intended to send a “woke” message.
While Glover described the attention around the campaign as “very positive”, he said he was disappointed by the “level of blatant hatred and intolerance” shown by social media commentators towards the models in the video.
He claimed that the message of the advertisement had been lost “in the fire of intolerance”.
“If we play the same way everyone else plays, we will sink. So we don’t want to look like an auto brand,” Glover told the FT.
“We need to reposition our brand at a completely different price point, so we need to do things differently. We wanted to move away from traditional automotive stereotypes.
Jaguar rebrand is part of company’s efforts attract wealthy clients in its transition to an all-electric vehicle lineup.
“This is not a reflection of how we think about our future customers,” Glover told the FT. “We don’t necessarily have to leave all of our customers behind. “But we need to attract a new customer base.”
Jaguar previously defended the company’s brand relaunch in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Our brand relaunch for Jaguar is a bold and imaginative reinvention and, as expected, it has attracted attention and debate. As proud custodians at such a remarkable juncture in Jaguar’s history, we have taken a dramatic leap forward to preserve the iconic icons. “The brand reveal is only the first step in this exciting new era and we look forward to sharing more on Jaguar’s transformation in the coming days and weeks,” the statement said.
