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Desperate times call for desperate measures, and luxury automaker Jaguar is so desperate these days to reinvent itself that it is gambling on a radical rebranding for a younger, gender-confused, “woke” market. In other words, Jaguar has gone full Bud Light.
Launched in 1935 and once hailed by no less a judge than Enzo Ferrari as “the most beautiful car in the world,” Jaguar became associated with a clientele of affluent rogues such as Frank Sinatra and Steve McQueen. It even spawned “the Jag man,” defined by Car magazine as “typically in his late-40s and a bit of a lady-killer in his time. A little dodgy in his younger days, he’d subsequently gone legit and prospered. A self-made man made good, if not really the sort of bloke you’d really want to mess with.”
But the vehicle universally recognized by its sleek, pouncing big cat hood ornament has fallen on lean times. Newsweek reports that last year, fewer than 67,000 Jags were sold worldwide – that’s about half the number sold during the fiscal year that included the start of the COVID pandemic. By May 2023, the Telegraph UK was wondering, “Is it the end of the road for Jaguar?” Currently, there are only 122 Jaguar dealerships in the U.S., down from a peak of about 200.
With little to lose, Jaguar first announced last month that it would largely discontinue making gas and diesel cars and unveil all-electric models in 2026 to virtue-signal its environmental consciousness. Then the company rolled the dice on a new direction with a 30-second ad spot that looks like an outtake from the universally panned opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics. It is replete with oh-so-self-consciously-artsy nonbinary freaks voguing along with pulsing club music on an alien landscape. Phrases like “create exuberant,” “live vivid,” “delete ordinary,” “break molds,” and “copy nothing” appear onscreen to hammer home the message for you boring normals that this ad is “different” and “creative.” Not a single car, or even the pouncing Jaguar logo, makes an appearance in the video.
Rawdon Glover, Jaguar’s managing director, said of the ad, “Jaguar is at its very best when it’s a copy of nothing, when it doesn’t follow the pack. The intention, absolutely, is to take Jaguar back to its heyday.” He concedes that this might polarize people, “but we’d prefer to be loved by a distinct group of people, rather than liked by lots of people.”
If Jaguar’s aim was to cater to “a distinct group” and alienate everyone else, then the ad is a rousing success. It will be loved by a dwindling number of wokesters who wouldn’t recognize cool if it punched them in the pronouns, and who can’t afford Jaguars anyway. Everyone else – the demographic that has always admired Jaguar as an icon of classic cool – is already jumping ship.
Needless to say (but I’m going to say it anyway), the ridiculous video has sparked widespread criticism, by which I mean outright mockery, online. Tesla founder Elon Musk himself weighed in, tweeting with tongue in cheek, “Do you sell cars?”
“Bye Jaguar, it was nice knowing you, to think, you were once the pinnacle of British motor engineering,” one person wrote on X.
“I’m not sure you all heard, but we aren’t doing that liberal artsy bullsh** anymore. Read the room,” a second X user added.
A third replies, “Didn’t you get the memo? Woke is dead. (And so is Jaguar, by the look of this turd).”
Australia’s Herald Sun posted more delicious examples of what it called a “brutal roasting.” One X user wrote, “All this ad tells me is to not buy your car.” Another called it “the worst ad I’ve ever seen.” Influencer Collin Rugg wrote, “Oof. We already turned the page on this.” And Virginia Republican state delegate Nick Freitas joked, “Well … we know where the advertising team for Bud Light went.”
Bud Light, you may recall, publicly committed harakiri by signing insufferable trans egotist Dylan Mulvaney to be the creepy face of its once-mainstream brand. Jaguar apparently decided to double down on that debacle.
Jaguar’s X account replied to the criticisms with hints of more gag-inducing advertising to come: “The story is unfolding. Stay tuned”; “We’re shifting gears, not our purpose”; and “Consider this the first brushstroke.” It promises to unveil the next stage of a “new era” for Jaguar at Miami Art Week on December 2, but catastrophic damage may already have been done.
As the brand’s chief creative officer Gerry McGovern explains, “Our vision for Jaguar today” is being built around something called “Exuberant Modernism.” (Pro tip for creatives of any field: if the word “modernism” is anywhere in the labeling of your art, scrap everything because it indicates that your work is a soulless, self-indulgent rejection of grand tradition and beauty. As time passes it will go the forgotten, meaningless way of all modernism.)
Managing director Glover explained that Jaguar is downshifting from the “Jag man” of old and accelerating toward more socially conscious buyers: “Customers need to feel they are joining a community. People today look for brands that they feel they share principles with. You need to feel like you’re not just purchasing a type of mobility – you’re buying into something bigger.”
But Lulu Cheng Meservey, co-founder of Rostra PR group, who dismissed the Jaguar rebranding as “disastrous,” pointed out on X, “It’s 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.”
Tragically for a once-esteemed automobile brand whose sleek, masculine design was simultaneously classic and cutting-edge, Jaguar execs have indeed failed to “read the room,” as one X user put it. Jaguar is gambling on that “something bigger” its managing director referred to being wokeness, which is already in retreat thanks to Donald Trump and the resurgence of #MAGA. While our culture is far from being freed from the Left’s stranglehold, the beginning of the end – the unqueering of America – is underway and a revival of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is upon us.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
I remember 35 years ago when I was an associate lawyer and a mid-level partner in my firm asked me if I would like a ride home. When we got to his vehicle in the parking garage it was a brand new Jaguar. It became obvious that he offered me the ride because he wanted to show off the car and its performance. He said, “it has always been my dream to own a Jaguar.” That scenario would have made for a much better commercial.
A real jaguar taking a dump in a zoo would make for a much better commercial.
“Copy Nothing” ? Funny HaHa. Their angry persona is a copy. Ask Jackson Pollock. Their costumes are a copy. Ask Hallmark. And their rebellion is a copy. Ask Lucifer !
“Kitsch.y is as Kitsch.y” does !
PS: Look for a return of Thatcherism via MEGA !
Bravo Sir Tapson. Keep em’ coming.
Dumb ? OK. But then, Edsel’s, Old “Harris” Tweeds, Hunter Biden paintings, and Titanic deck chairs eventually bring good money. Over sold names, like old rebels, come and go.
Kind of smart to buy a Duchamp’ chess board !. Read the Three Little Pigs again.
“You go Jaguar boy” !
That was worse than anything that even Andy Warhol ever did.
So much irony you could build a battleship. The photo itself is a group of beings copying one another.
And why are all those freaks so ugly and snotty looking? This is Bud Light times eight. Does Jaguar want to go bankrupt? And going electric and making its cars even more overpriced isn’t going to help it sell any. Not to mention trannies and other alphabet people comprise 2% of the population at most, and very few of them could afford a Jaguar.
Great choice for a targeted market, you Jaguar retards.
I’m from Birmingham where jaguars are made, just down the road from the council estate where I lived.
It has gone through various phases and I achieved my dream of owning one about 10 years ago. Sadly I drove like an idiot and wrote it off.
Now Jaguar is going to be written off as has Birmingham which has almost zero English people living there anymore.
Ford owned it for a while and sold it to the Indian company Tata who gave the engineers free rein to design a new jaguar and that saved the company.
Now this!!
Gaguar’s vision of the future is an Orwellian dystopian nightmare.
Curious that England is already in the middle of committing cultural suicide, maybe Jaguar is just following suit. Although judging from the characters in this ad, I doubt muslims are their target audience.
“What’s your name?” – To the guy with the notch cut in his fro.
“Quarter ’til.”
No thanks. Even as screwed up as the Germans are, I’ll still stick with them. The Brits???? Well, they’re too stupid to even know what day it is. I knew this was going to happen after the Grand Ole Lady died. They desperately need both QE;s back to get them out of this hole.
Jaguar should replace Volvo as the automotive choice of eunuchs and the blue bracelet 4B brigades.
Volvo still exists?
Yes, owned by the People’s Republic of China.
This ad looks like the teletubbies came out of retirement. Its hopelesssly bad. Apparently Jaguar says it wants a new type of customer. It just kissed good bye to its existing customers.
IfJaguar were smart (it looks like it isnt) it will slam on the brakes and shift into reverse immediately and drop this new ad campaign. But it won’t. The left, when its ideas are shown to be immensely unpopular, doubles down. Expect Jaguar to double down.
Jaguar can double down, and go broke in half the time. The damage is done and can’t be undone. This is corporate suicide by stupidity. This Jaguar owner (‘07 X-Type) can’t imagine any future Jag, after tossing its heritage, being of interest.
Yes, and enjoy a Bud light on their way doubling down…
“People today look for brands that they feel they share principles with.” (sic). So just what is the principle this ad display? I’m not sure deviance is a “principle” or that Jaguar would want to reduce its customer base to people who share that “principle.”. It’s more like sticking its thumb in the customers’ eyes.
Jaguar forgot their most iconic model: Zippy the Pinhead.
This is the wave of the future?? UGH.
Future? It doesn’t even attain the level of a temporary fad. Thank God.
And another one bites the dust!!
Yeah, Jaguar might as well change its name to Edsel.
At least the Edsel had an honest to God 410ci 375hp 475-V8. Not some lousy probably dangerous EV bs.
And another one bites the dust!!
The image kind of screams “Trans-Humanism!” Almost no one smiles, and the electronic techno pulse score sounds more than a little like the threatening grind in the background of the first Terminator film. Memorable, perhaps, even disturbing. But will it sell cars, or robots?
If Jaguar continues its “modern” positioning, they might very well become the next big cultural meme. In which case, you’ll be seeing various scenarios that go like this: A man drives by in his Jaguar, while two onlookers observe, turn to each other, and remark: “Gay.” It may not be fair, but when it comes to American popular culture, the law of the jungle prevails.
As a older teenager my father and I bought a 1956(?) Jaguar XK-150. It was an automatic but could run like a squalled dog when you hit the accelerator. The rear end dropped down about 6 inches and took off! I hung around with a couple of guys that also had sports cars. Once we got it up to 95 MPH but due to damage from flooding (according to my father) we slowed down as it started shaking like it was coming apart. It had a large steering wheel and a vertical and horizontal arms that just made driving it a dream. I was heading home after a dance or something about mid-night and noticed I was doing about 85 MPH. I immediately slowed down. This was in California where the freeways were already working (1968). But man it was a blast to drive. It had a straight 6 cylinder engine and power to spare.
We saw this commercial last night and my husband, said wow, did they hold a casting call for the most homely, uninspiring, ugly actors?? yikes! Worst marketing campaign ever🤦🤦🤷
Outstanding comment! Best laugh of the day, bro.
Robert McCall, the named character in the 80’s TV show “The Equalizer,” he drove a Jaguar in the series. McCall was played by the British actor Edward Woodward. The Equalizer, one my favorite shows.
The eight coffee baristas in that photo couldn’t collectively afford to change the oil on a Jaguar.
That picture of Not Steve McQueen is hilarious. I actually laughed out loud.
Too bad. So sad to see this lovely brand going away into the sunset.
When I buy/recurve the desiccated remains of Jaguar next year, as the “free” toy in my grand son’s happy meal, I promise to turn it into an automobile company. We will sell hard top coupes and convertibles with gasoline fed V-12 engines and manual transmissions.
Jaguar is obviously targeting gender-confused, leftist, environut weirdos with zero taste with this bizarre commercial. Good luck with that one. I doubt that this market segment can afford a Jag, and the rest who can will be too embarrassed after this to drive one around.
“I doubt that this market segment can afford a Jag”,
I am assuming they are targeting the TikTok, Instagram, YouTube etc “influencers” who are pulling in large amounts of revenue, along with “woke’ Hollywood and media stars, “woke” sports stars and the like. Especially as Jaguar are planning to via with luxury car makers Bentley/RollsRoyce on pricing. Jaguar must have calculated that this limited “woke” but cash-rich market will provide enough sales/profits for the new luxury EV Jags. Time will tell. However I think the new Jaguar logo style and branding is more Renault Twingo than luxury cars. But I’m old-school in that regard.
Bud Lite, John Deere, the WW 2 Museum in New Orleans , I abandon them that abandon me. Let them do business among themselves.